Summer schedule! There will be no Vital Weekly in week 34 (18 to 24 august)
PIIPTSJILLING – MOLKEDRIPPEN (CD by Spekk) *
RICHARD CRANDELL & MASUMI TIMSON – PACIFIC BRIDGE (CD by Panai) *
YOKOTSUKA YUUYA – RETURN TO NATURE (CD by Kaico) *
YUTA INOUE – HOMEMADE DUST COLLECTOR (CD by Kaico) *
NICO HUIJBREGTS – HOE ALLES OPLOST (CD by Vindu)
RICHARD YOUNGS – PRIMARY CONCRETE ATTACK (CD by Fourth Dimension) *
EXTNDDNTWRK – JUST TRACKS (2CD by Fourth Dimension) *
DANNY NORBURY – LIGHT IN AUGUST (CD by Flau) *
ULISES CONTI – LOS GRIEGOS CREIAN QUE LAS ESTRALLAS ERAN PEQUENOS AGUJEROS POR DONDE LOS DIOSES ESCUCHABAN A LOS HOMBRES (CD by Flau) *
YVAN ETIENNE – FEU (CD by Aposiopese) *
ANNE-F JACQUES & TIM OLIVE – DOMINION MILLS (CD by 845audio) *
FRANCISCO MEIRINO – NOTEBOOK (TECHNIQUES OF SELF-DESTRUCTION) (CD by Misanthropic Agenda) *
ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI & TETSUO FURUDATE – WORLD AS WILL, LIVE IN SAO PAULO (double CDR by Menstrualrecordings) *
MURDER CORPORATION – DER TOTENKOPF (LP by Menstrualrecordings)
GOG (LP by King of Monsters Records)
MASAMI AKITA & JOHN DUNCAN – THE BLACK ALBUM (LP by Tourette Records)
THEME – NO EMOTIONS CATERED FOR (LP by Idioblast Records)
JASON KAHN – NOEMA (2LP by Editions)
SUBLAMP – LIANAS (CDR by Eilean Records) *
D.O.R. FEATURING CRYS COLE – HESTEKUR (CDR by Caduc) *
REVERSE PROJECTION – REALIGNMENT (CDR by Eter-Lab) *
MIGUEL ISAZA – LEVEDAD (CDR by Eter-Lab) *
DAVID VELEZ – NARRATIVES DE MATERIA (CDR by Eter-Lab) *
DARREN MCCLURE – OBJECT TRIO (3″CDR by Eter-Lab) *
14CIRCLES – BODY IN WHITE (3″CDR by FFS Space) *
CARL MICHAEL VON HAUSWOLFF & MICHAEL ESPOSITO – IN THE PACKAGE (cassette by Gerauschmanufaktur)
THE DEAD MAURIACS – ARE YOU HERE? (cassette by Gerauschmanufaktur)
STREET PRIEST – MORE NASTY (cassette by Humbler)
KOSTIS KILYMIS – KOMHTHS (cassette by Hideous Replica)
KUCHARCZYK – DEMON TECHNO W OKULARACH (cassette by Mik Musik)
PIIPTSJILLING – MOLKEDRIPPEN (CD by Spekk)
Of the four albums by Dutch quartet Piiptsjilling, I think I didn’t hear the third one, ‘Moarntidds’ on Midira, but the self-titled debut (Vital Weekly 627) and ‘Wurdskrieme’ (Vital Weekly 756), which I both enjoyed. I also had the pleasure to see them in concert. The quartet is Romke Kleefstra (guitar), his brother Jan writes and recites the poetry, Mariska Baars (guitar and vocals; you might know her from her work as Soccer Committee) and Machinefabriek’s Rutger Zuydervelt on electronics. On a farm in the native country of Friesland, up north in The Netherlands (where people have their own language, hard to understand if you are not a native speaker) they get together and improvise on end. No rules, no game plan, just play and see what’s happening. Jan Kleefstra somewhere along the improvisational lines adds his poetry, very soft spoken, but the Frisian lyrics are on the cover along with their English translation. It’s very quiet music, even quieter it seems than on their previous releases but it also doesn’t seem to be a million miles away, into something entirely different. This is music of wide-open spaces – like the Frisian landscape is – of farm land, the sea at the horizon, and the somewhat desolate voice of Kleefstra – who speaks rather than sings – intoning what seems to be a rather sombre poetry. Only the short (ish) ‘Mule Fol Snie’ may have the idea of a very introvert pop song. It’s all a bit different from the work of Machienfabriek, but surely true fans will embrace Piiptsjilling also (they probably already did a long time ago). Great release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.spekk.net
RICHARD CRANDELL & MASUMI TIMSON – PACIFIC BRIDGE (CD by Panai)
YOKOTSUKA YUUYA – RETURN TO NATURE (CD by Kaico)
YUTA INOUE – HOMEMADE DUST COLLECTOR (CD by Kaico)
World music is something that we don’t get a lot, but here’s one. Here we have Masumi Timson and her koto and Richard Crandell on the mbira. They met up at the Asian Celebration last year and immediately hit it off. These instruments work well together, but it’s not really something I like a lot. A few songs are all right, and I might be totally out of place, but after a while it sounds like restaurant music to me. No doubt this is not the intention of these two players, and no doubt this is due to the lack of knowledge on my side. I am totally lost here. I didn’t finish this until the end. Sorry.
The next two albums are available through the same source, but something entirely different. Yuuya presents his second album, following ‘To You After Two Years’ (see Vital Weekly 886). Unlike what I wrote back then, I don’t think he is a member with Ametsub. His music is still created with the use of beats, rhythms and loops all from the world of click, hiss and glitch and to which he adds his piano playing. In hip circles – lounge bars, hipster places, coffee places, and the modern music concert hall – this is something that is very much in demand. Maybe not unlike the Crandell & Timson record music for a specific place, but no doubt Yuuya might be more pleased with the location I think his music fits into. Just like the previous album, this is very pleasant music to pass time with, read books, and clean the house. Some pieces, like ‘Grace (Alight)’, seemed to be outside the piano+rhythm idiom and showed maybe a way out, to some more a more engaging, a more different approach.
Yuta Inoue is from the Kansai beat scene, which you find in West Japan, including Kyoto and Osaka. His music is along the lines of Yuuya, but then without the piano and without the feeling of any specific location. You can play his beat oriented music at home, on your bicycle, jogging or in any other place that requires some sort of entertaining, rhythm oriented music. The only thing that is probably not easy to do is dancing to this. The beats are at times a bit too chaotic, too strange and not simply ticking away time in a straight 4/4-time measure. I detected some influences from the world of hip-hop, including scratching sounds. Like the Yuuya album a most entertaining record with some truly pleasant tunes. Not something that you easily remember once it’s over, but that might not be the point of the music either. (FdW)
Address: http://www.naturebliss.jp
NICO HUIJBREGTS – HOE ALLES OPLOST (CD by Vindu)
This new album by Dutch composer and improviser (piano) Nico Huijbregts features five compositions, composed between 2011 and 2013. We know Huijbrechts is familiar with very different musical worlds, and interested in making musically interesting combinations both as an improviser and as a composer. As an improviser he released an album of solo piano improvisations (‘Free Floating Forms’) as well as an double-album of duets (‘Dialogue Dreams’). ‘Falsche Tango’ was his first release of composed works if I’m not mistaken. To be followed now by ‘Hoe alles oplost’, where Huijbrechts presents five elegant works for different line ups. The opening and the closing compositions are solo works: ‘Katatatonie’ is written for clarinet and the title-piece for solo-violin. In between we find ‘A Passive goal’ for flute and harpsichord, plus two ensemble works. ‘Only you’ is for string quartet, performed by the Alauda Quartet, plus ‘Farfánesque’ for blockflutes, panflute, viola, accordion and percussion, performed by Ensemblke Black Pencil. All compositions are written in a clear handwriting. Both solo-pieces are very captivating and pronounced monologues. From a stylistic point of view I would call this modern classical chamber music with strong romantic touches. ‘Farfánesque’ is a rhythm-based work for an unusual line up. It reminded me a bit of the energy that we find in tango music. ‘A Passive Goal’ is written for flute and harpsichord. The intertwined lines they play create a work a circles around a strong nucleus. ‘Only you’ is for string quartet, with a short vocal moment in the finale. We hear the words ‘only you’ sung along the lines of a melody by the Platters of the same name. Five very different works, but all of them well-constructed works with relevance, showing Huijbrechts is a very capable composer. (DM)
Address: http://www.toondist.nl
RICHARD YOUNGS – PRIMARY CONCRETE ATTACK (CD by Fourth Dimension)
EXTNDDNTWRK – JUST TRACKS (2CD by Fourth Dimension)
Before reading about the new Richard Youngs CD I had already heard it and it stuck only as something ‘electronic’ into the back of my head. Not, say, his singer-songwriter work. But beyond I didn’t register anything else. When Youngs met up with Fourth Dimension boss Richo Johnson last year he said he would like to ‘rise to the challenge of any music idea put to him’, so Johnson asked him to do a dub album, to which Youngs said he hated reggae and then set about to work on his dub record. ‘Primary Concrete Attack’ is the result and it has sadly/greatly (whatever your perception is) not much to do with dub music. Unless of course you would think than having a bunch of looped sounds of some/any kind, feeding through all sorts of effects constitutes as dub music – which in my book isn’t. I also wouldn’t go as far as saying that Youngs revolutionized the world of dub. The eight pieces here are too abstract to be called ‘dub’ music and simply: you can’t dance to it. Having said all of that I think this is a great record, but of course: I love Richard Youngs. He once did a more or less a sort of house record and this seems to be it’s more abstract little brother. Lots of rhythms and loops, which bounce around in delay, chorus and reverb and it creates some wonderfully abstract music. Richard Youngs is probably one of the people I know who constantly changes his tunes, instruments and working methods and has a unique voice in doing so. ‘Primary Concrete Attack’ is another great addition to his vast catalogue of beauties. I might be biased.
There is not a lot of information on the double CD by Extnddntwrk: nothing at all, besides a list of all twenty titles. Behind this is Andrew Fearn, who is, apparently, one half of Sleaford Mods; I hadn’t heard of either before. This is all rhythmical stuff, heavily on the use of loops from electronic apparatus. Drum computers and samplers, along with synthesizers and a bit of vocals. Most of the times quite techno like, sometimes a bit drum & bass, but also sampling punk in ‘Stoop Me’. It has a great lo-fi character, making this is not entirely dance music, but a mutated and mutilated version thereof. Post-everything really. Techno, punk, drum & bass, lo-fi electronics with sometimes a track being a mere sketch, a notion, an idea and then moving on to the next one. The first CD has new pieces; the other is a bonus disc of older material from various net releases. These shorter pieces however don’t sound like throwaway things, as there seem to be worked out enough to get their presentation on a disc. The addition of spoken word samples and vocals add something to the music, which perhaps makes things a bit pop like than something aiming for dance floors. A delightful adventurous work! (FdW)
Address: http://fourth-dimension.net/wp/
DANNY NORBURY – LIGHT IN AUGUST (CD by Flau)
ULISES CONTI – LOS GRIEGOS CREIAN QUE LAS ESTRALLAS ERAN PEQUENOS AGUJEROS POR DONDE LOS DIOSES ESCUCHABAN A LOS HOMBRES (CD by Flau)
Composer Danny Norbury is a member of Black Elk, The Boats, Kinder Scout and Le Lendemain and in 2009 he released a limited CDR ‘Light In August’, which is now being re-issued by Flau. Norbury plays the cello and the piano and this collection of eighteen pieces shows how this delicate music works. Sometimes a piano solo piece, then a cello solo and then a duet. It’s quiet music, full of sadness, beauty, sorrow, grief – ‘I turn Off The Light And Close The Door’ is one of the titles – love no doubt, all packed up in relatively short pieces. Each of these pieces is rounded off, closed down and we pick up for the next. If you like Peter Broadrick or Nils Frahm or such modern composers of delicate, chamber music, then Norbury should be on your list as well. What more can one say about this? Perhaps that’s it doesn’t feel like summertime music? With the sun full up, high temperature, this moody modern classical music doesn’t seem to fit the season; perhaps one ought to wait for autumn?
Ulises Conti, whose album ‘Atlas’ was reviewed in Vital Weekly 912, also has modern classical music on his album. The title of this new album means, according to Google translate: “Greeks believed that were small holes star where the gods listened men’, and the twenty-seven pieces are called ‘A’ to ‘Z’, with the N twice, but one N with a line on top. Like his previous album it seems that the influences of Erik Satie and Claude Debussy are never far away, but Conti doesn’t rely on one particular instrument, although there is a lot of piano in these pieces. But also soft glitches, sustained computer sounds, generated from processing acoustic instruments, aided with a bit of field recording. Again the music is not very difficult or overtly abstract, but very pleasant to hear. Mild music and it’s probably something that fits the hot weather better: I could easily sit on a porch, sipping a cool drink and in the background playing this music. It would no doubt evoke a dream like state and I’d fall asleep on said porch. Sadly I have no porch. (FdW)
Address: http://www.flau.jp
YVAN ETIENNE – FEU (CD by Aposiopese)
The name Yvan Etienne seems to me new – at least to me – and he’s involved in the field of sound art, such as site-specific installations and concerts in which he plays analogue synthesizers, electronics, hurdy gurdy and phonography. He played with Phil Niblock, Yann Gourdan, Richard Glover, Robert Poss and Paul Panhuysen. ‘Feu’ (which means ‘fire’) is his first album and recorded partly at ‘2 princesses’ and at EMS in Stockholm. Here Etienne plays the hurdy gurdy, serge modular and field recordings. This is quite an interesting work in which, I think, the sound of fire is being imitated by the serge modular synth, which is perhaps triggered by the use of field recordings feeding into the machine. Etienne made a whole bunch of recordings and in the end he staples all of these recordings together and then mixes them together. It’s all very minimal, especially in ‘De La Charge’, which is a mass of closely linked sounds, and in ‘La Lueur’ the minimalism is separated from each other. Here we have a bit of fire like sounds, then the static drone sounds from modular and hurdy gurdy mixed together into a loud(er) piece of static music. This is not the usual album of quiet drone/ambient music, but Etienne works from the more noisy end of that area, and thus sounds like something way more interesting than the regular album of drones/field recording/ambient. (FdW)
Address: http://aposiopese.com
ANNE-F JACQUES & TIM OLIVE – DOMINION MILLS (CD by 845audio)
More music by Canada’s musician in Japan, Tim Olive, although here he teams up with fellow Canadian Anne-F Jacques. We reviewed a cassette from her, on Crustaces Tapes (see Vital Weekly 829). Her interest lies in the use of amplification and ‘erratic sound production devices’. Here she gets credit for rotating devices, while Tim Olive plays magnetic pickups. The material here was recorded in Jacques’ studio in November last year and we have three parts, which span a total of twenty-nine minutes. The pickup, so I assume, picks up the signal of the rotating devices and makes up some of the more crazy experimental improvisation music I heard in some time. Things rumble and crack, sound very noisy, bumping around, slipping into feedback (or not) and such like. It’s quite a wild ride, and sadly a bit short, I think. I wouldn’t have minded another piece like this. No overdubs, no looping devices, just manual labour went into this release. Excellent stuff! (FdW)
Address: http://845audio.org
FRANCISCO MEIRINO – NOTEBOOK (TECHNIQUES OF SELF-DESTRUCTION) (CD by Misanthropic Agenda)
By now Francisco Meirino has created a nice catalogue of work that deakls with all the aspects of failure. Not in it’s execution but at it’s origin: broken down equipment, the last dying breath of an amplifier, an extension cord, a near broken plug and all such like are part and parcel in his work, along with the usual field recordings. He records all of those whenever they occur and puts them back into the overall composition, which he creates. That makes his work quite noisy, loud, dirty, but unlike many other noisemakers, Meirino creates a composition rather than a mindless stream of sound. Sounds do not just rattle on, feeding through some distortion boxes but Meirino places his sounds carefully on the canvas – the multi-track sound edit program – and starts mixing his sounds together so it is engaging composition to hear. He has a fine play with the dynamics of sounds. It can be very soft, isolated on one hand or heavily layered together so all the events are to be heard at the same time. He also uses heavy equalisation of his sound material, so deep end bass drone rumble is never far away. Meirino is along the lines of Joe Colley and Roel Meelkop, although more heavy and darker than the latter, but sharing a similar sensibility when it comes to pasting his sounds together. This new work (one track from a previously released LP, plus seven new ones of which two were used in an installation for eight speakers) is another great addition to his body of work so far. Not his definitive masterpiece but continuing a fine upwards curve. (FdW)
Address: http://misanthropicagenda.com
ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI & TETSUO FURUDATE – WORLD AS WILL, LIVE IN SAO PAULO (double CDR by Menstrualrecordings)
MURDER CORPORATION – DER TOTENKOPF (LP by Menstrualrecordings)
The CDRs come in a tin with a booklet – which contains an essay on ‘Being’ by Levinas – a famous French philosopher… famous for being very obscure and although putting others first not known for his party tricks… and an essay by the German philosopher Schopenhauer on noise – well his complaints about the sounds of horsewhips in the street outside as well as dogs and kids which stopped his (deep) thoughts, who was famous for masturbating and being beaten up by Hegel. Disc one is an echoey drone bass with the occasional something other- tip of the hat to Levinas. (Blasts of noise) whilst in #2 yet more reverb and the general industrial atmospherics – and drones –
which at times become lyrical and ‘musical’… The yellow vinyl if anything presents a more sparse and minimal industrial aesthetic… with its Nazi deathgraphics. So I guess we can say these are representative examples of the genre known as ‘industrial’, with its Nazi, sexual abuse, dead and tortured bodies imaginary – Whitehouse and Throbbing Gristle’s legacy – if it was not their own but the popularization of the fin-de-circle angst of the intellectual upper classes at the turn of the 19th century, yet lacking the elegance of the calligraphy of Aubrey Beardsley instead the aesthetics of the 24 hour kebab house. Oh my! The human condition – as dragged out over 100 years of romantic breast-beating and alienation, only nowadays everyone is alienated! The sort of dire metaphysics of Lacan, Žižek (T.M.) and notably Levinas – who actually owned a dog! For company? Or to bite the unwelcome stranger? (philosophical joke there guys!) Its patently obvious we are all full of shit, and to keep repeating the fact gets tiresome, sorry! The problem with painting black pictures as depressing images of the human condition is a) It supposes an alternative – and there is none. b) Anthropocentricism stinks, is full of shit, and intellectually why? Well as Brassier might say, all the misery of humanity is nothing to an essentially dead universe, or better put by someone who was mistaken for a Nihilist! So I’ll quote in full for the benefit of the self obsessed – get over it, it & you are – no big deal! “Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of “world history,” but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.” – Nietzsche ‘On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense’ So get over it guys – or is the ‘industrial scene’ just another expression of the arrogant and mendacious – just as pertinent to Reality (T.M.) as country and western music, or One Direction. (jliat)
Address: http://www.menstrualrecordings.org/index2.htm
GOG (LP by King of Monsters Records)
Information on Gog isn’t really forthcoming. Is it a band? An one man project? Is it just Michael Bjella, who plays all ‘other sounds’, with drums performed by Josh Bodnar and vocals on one piece by Francesca Marongiu. I have been playing this record for quite some time now and I find it very hard to say something about it. I heard lots of guitars mixed together, drum sounds, maybe some repressed vocalizations and the occasional piano. It has the elements of metal music (maybe the cover is a sort of distraction too), a field of music I don’t have a knowledge of, doom music, drone noise, and throughout sounds quite despressing, and I am sure that is the goal of all of this. While this will not be a daily digest for me, not this particular record or whatever genre it belongs too, I must also say that these dark walls of sound were quite nice. Maybe it fuelled a bit of last week’s depression about world events, I thought. But perhaps in a odd way this sort of depressing music has something uplifting as well? Despite all my considerations and doubts and perhaps insecurity I thought this was a great record. (FdW)
Address: http://kingofmonstersrecords.bigcartel.com
MASAMI AKITA & JOHN DUNCAN – THE BLACK ALBUM (LP by Tourette Records)
Something I didn’t realize until today, is that John Duncan lived in Japan for quite some time, and surely met Masami Akita from Merzbow in those years, but for whatever reason never worked together. Now they did. In a short period of time this is the second collaboration with John Duncan, although his record with Jim O’Rourke didn’t make it to these pages. The cover of this album isn’t black as in all black as in “It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.” It has the titles in white and through the shotgun holes you see the pink inner sleeve. The vinyl itself is green. The shotgun holes leave traces of paper on the vinyl itself. Duncan made the source recordings and I assume they both worked on the end result. On the side with the black label things are in a straightforward Merzbow-like noise manner. Loud, distorted, like a hundred records stuck into very dirty grooves, but mixed together with much consideration. Unlike a more average solo record by Merzbow, things here are mixed with a keen eye for variation and occasionally we hear the original sound sources, which seem to be field recordings of heavy weight objects in a large space, or maybe some sort of shortwave. Maybe this more careful yet not always careful music is the reason why this is released under Akita’s own name and not Merzbow? A pretty strong record if you ask me. Lots of variation, lots of consideration and lots of noise. Everybody wins. (FdW)
Address: http://touretterecords.com/
THEME – NO EMOTIONS CATERED FOR (LP by Idioblast Records)
Back in the day I was a big fan of Theme, a group around Richo Johnson (also label boss for Fourth Dimension Records) and Stuart Carter, with a revolving membership. Their first two CDs I really liked, see Vital Weekly 247 and 527, but was very much disappointed by their third release ‘Valentine (Lost) Forever’, in which they moved to a more atmospheric rock like band with vocals that reminded me of Current 93, and that is, in my humble book, not a great thing. Following a witnessed so-so concert I heard another record with Zsolt Sores and Jean-Herve Peron, with was quite all right. Improvised, rock like. Here is a new record, with again an extended line up, with Zsolt Sores now a main member, but also Olga Drenda, Hayden Berry, Ian Darlinson, Lukasz Kozak and instruments listed include field recordings, vocals, viola, guitar, samples, spoken word, clarinet, monosynth, and bass. There is a large amount of spoken word and vocals on this new record, but somehow it sounds less David Tibet and more like their own voice. In ‘Logic Is (Not) The Answer’ it is dubbed into a choir like sound and with the guitars underneath it sounds like Dome/Five Or Six – excellent! That is by far the best piece on this record, but I must admit I quite enjoyed the whole record actually. Some of its content may be a bit gothic, such as the dramatic timpani sounds in ‘Dream Your Dreams’, but the fine mixture of improvised music, rock like sounds, vocals, spoken word and an occasional nod towards pop structures make this actually a very nice record. Sometimes dark and closed, but also at times open with the gentle strumming of an acoustic guitar. (FdW)
Address: https://www.facebook.com/idioblastrecords?ref=hl
JASON KAHN – NOEMA (2LP by Editions)
This double album is packed in the same cardboard that Kahn used for his CD releases when he still had the Cut label. Now his new enterprise is called Editions, and releases his own work. With this thick grey cardboard and two pieces of vinyl, this feels like a heavy package. The music is something different than you would expect from Kahn. Normally you’ll find him with an analogue synthesizer, percussion or laptop playing minimally dense patterns of sounds; on this double LP he offers a collection of thirty-seven short pieces all recorded in Kyoto. A Polaroid if you will from the city, ‘exploring social space through everyday sound’, and not just focusing on things you may associate Kyoto with, shrines and temples. Each piece is described on the insert, which provides some nice reading material. I visited Kyoto many years ago, and it’s a beautiful Japanese city – but I might be biased: I think I like Japan – so you could think these sounds are familiar to me, but they aren’t. It’s been seven years ago and perhaps I was listening in the same way as Kahn did. However the sounds he recorded, the interaction between people in everyday situations, from perhaps odd recording perspectives, allowing sounds to drop in which you might not expect makes this a truly fascinating, aural trip to the city. Street sounds, shops, temples, pachincko, semishigures and other nature sounds. Topped with Kahn’s writing on the cover it might even make sense for those who never been to Kyoto. A beautiful product. It makes me wanna go back straight away (ok, perhaps not in July, the hottest of all months over there, I believe). (FdW)
Address: http://jasonkahn.net/
SUBLAMP – LIANAS (CDR by Eilean Records)
Behind Sublamp we find one Ryan Connor, of whom, despite previous releases on labels as Hibernate, Felt and Sem, I don’t think I heard before. ‘Lianas’ is his first album since 2012, and Connors tells us that his music is ‘simply looped guitar through various pedals and a nice warm tube amp, sometimes recorded through an old reel to reel tape machine for extra crackle and hiss’, which seems to me exactly the sort of thing I am hearing on this release. Perhaps that is a pity, I was thinking. It fulfils my expectations – ‘oh, another one of those very nice drone inspired releases of which we receive a lot’ – but at the same time I must admit this is a release that I quite enjoyed. If not for its originality – it isn’t – I think Connors produces his textured pieces quite nicely, with the right amount of variation, with lots of drama, but also with some extra bite in ‘Our Bodies Draped In Moss And Cloud’, with it’s distortion gently weeping in the background, or the slow evolving loops of ‘Bramble And Thorn’, hovering in near silence. Small variations in a well explored sound land. I quite enjoyed it on this somewhat lazy day. (FdW)
Address: http://www.eilean-records.com/
D.O.R. FEATURING CRYS COLE – HESTEKUR (CDR by Caduc)
This seems to be the second release by D.O.R., a trio from Victoria, British Columbia, with Jamie Drouin (analogue synthesizer, radio) and Mathieu Ruhlmann (turntable, motors, objects) and Lance Austin Olsen (objects, floor guitar). They play six tracks here and on two of them they are guested by Crys Cole on contact mics and objects. The tracks with her were recorded in June 2012, the other pieces in 2011-2012. This is not a case of 3 + 1 is more as all six pieces sound like carefully constructed pieces in which improvisation meet up with the world of electro-acoustic music. Lots of silence, small bursts of feedback sounds, crackles and sine waves. You could hardly say this is easy music, as it requires quite a bit of your attention. Like much of these people’s solo activities this is perhaps all more microsound than pure improvisation, but perhaps that’s mainly due to the much used silence around here, as well as some more continuous sounds from radio waves and modular synths creating deep end drones. Like the previous release I was reminded of Kapotte Muziek, mainly due to the lack of any sound effects and having the sounds as ‘dry’ as possible, but also Morphogenesis and Noise-Maker’s Fifes would be fine points of reference. At forty-one minutes this is just the right length for a full on concentrated listening. Great release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.caduc.org
REVERSE PROJECTION – REALIGNMENT (CDR by Eter-Lab)
MIGUEL ISAZA – LEVEDAD (CDR by Eter-Lab)
DAVID VELEZ – NARRATIVES DE MATERIA (CDR by Eter-Lab)
DARREN MCCLURE – OBJECT TRIO (3″CDR by Eter-Lab)
Continuing from last week, here’s the other four releases of which the first one is also ‘home brew’, that is the city where the label is from: Medellin, Columbia. Reverse Projection is one Santiago Merino, using analogue and digital machines, along with field recordings and found objects. If the first few releases on Eter-Label sounded from the world of sound art, this one is definitely more ‘musical’, owing to the world of music with rhythm. The slow repeating sounds of ‘Bleach Out’ remind me of Chain Reaction, but in a much cruder way. Not as refined or delicate and perhaps not as dance oriented; this seems to me more headphones like music, but not to sit down and listen, but move around; while walking or while on your bike. Nice and crude.
More music from Miguel Isaza – see also last week – but this time under his own name. More explorations from field recordings, found instruments and objects, as the website tells us, and it’s again along the lines of Line and Richard Chartier, and while perhaps not the most original, it’s his best work so far. This is more coherent, more development and with more variation in the choice of sounds. Long sustaining sounds from stretched out sounds, with occasional glitches on top. Very mellow, very quiet, but also with enough bite to be interesting and entertaining.
David Velez is the first name I recognize in the Eter-Lab catalogue and I reviewed his work before. He is from Colombia and lived in New York for a while. Now he’s back in Columbia and recording the sound material on this work using a Hi8 analogue camera, the same he used fifteen years ago, when he was capturing his first field recordings. For ‘Narratives De Materia’ he recorded obsolete electronic devices, ‘the experimentation with substances that are reactive to water’ and ‘the brewing of hot drinks in my kitchen’ – nice approach to field recordings: something different at last. Velez has some nice sounds to offer of a more noisy nature, sometimes bursting with energy and information – hand me an espresso too, please – and sometimes just loudly clouds of buzzing sounds. Lots of crackling too, and lots of static electricity. This is probably the noisiest release that this label has so far, but I think it’s also one of the best so far. Very dramatic, very much a story and doing something else with field recordings than sticking a microphone outside.
It’s been a while since I last heard music from Darren McClure, his album ‘Softened Edges’ was reviewed in Vital Weekly 598. Here has two pieces and in both he only uses three sound sources – hence the title. One of the three was an acoustic instrument or a non-musical object. Afterwards the sound material gets all sorts of sound treatments, I assume using computer methods. In the first piece we have a stone, a wooden branch and a Tibetan singing bowl, and in the second a rubber band, water and a lap harp. I wouldn’t have guessed any of this. Both of these pieces are quite alike, with minor differences. Both have drone like sounds that make up the backbone of the piece, and on top they have small sounds woven into and out of the piece. Usually small, glitchy sounds. ‘Object Trio 2’ seems to be a bit darker than ‘Object Trio 1’. Both of them are quite nice, but not really surprisingly new – again: 12K/Line and everything along those lines. But a fine release anyway. (FdW)
Address: http://eter-lab.net
14CIRCLES – BODY IN WHITE (3″CDR by FFS Space)
Copied on a 5″CDR, but lasting twenty minutes and coming to us in a great package (plastic sheets stuck together with fine printed cardboard and fine design, is the music by 14Circles. Anton Holota is behind 14Circles, and his from the Ukraine. He sometimes calls himself .at/on, and when he is playing techno/dub it’s Cotf. Last year he moved to Berlin. In this time span of twenty minutes he has nine pieces, so you can imagine these pieces are rather short. While owing the world that brought us Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda and Pan Sonic, 14 Circles, due the briefness of his tracks, sound just a little bit different. It has the clear rhythm patterns of the first two and the aggression of the latter influence, but his sketch-like pieces have a more raw character – ‘Cell’ could be a great song if it was a bit longer than the one minute and five seconds it is now. I think it would have been better to work these pieces into say three or four minutes, thus retaining a nice, brief character, or even make them ‘poppy’, in all its force, as does ‘Sgnl’ or ‘Phone’. It would truly make his own sound, I think. All the ingredients are there I’d say. (FdW)
Address: http://ffspace.info
CARL MICHAEL VON HAUSWOLFF & MICHAEL ESPOSITO – IN THE PACKAGE (cassette by Gerauschmanufaktur)
THE DEAD MAURIACS – ARE YOU HERE? (cassette by Gerauschmanufaktur)
These two tapes by Germany Gerauschmanufaktur are the first in a new ‘Live Series’. The first one is a recording from November last year of a joint concert by Hauswolff and Esposito, using EVP’s captured in the same place as the recording was held. One side is filled with sounds of shuffling large objects through a big space, perhaps the church where this was recorded, along with the static electrical charged sounds – perhaps the EVPs. This is probably what you would expect from them. On the other side there are similar shuffling sounds, but more like paper on a table, heavily amplified and the two men use the voices for some interplay, which is (apparently) funny, as we hear people laughing. I am not sure what about as the content was not easy to comprehend. But in its vagueness it sounds mysterious and captivating.
Its been a while since I last heard music from The Dead Mauriacs, a trio of Vincent Domeyne (computer, midi keyboards), Olivier Prieur (computer, midi keyboard, darquies, Walkman, cut-up voices, field recordings) and Helene Prieur (text, voice) – see also Vital Weekly 730, 745 and 752, after which things became quiet (or just never reached me). Here they return with a work ‘In Memoriam Harry Houdini and Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdini, recorded in Le Havre, March 19, 2012. Despite the presence of the two computers, the music is less ‘laptop’ based then you expect. The Dead Mauriacs create their own hybrid of music styles, laptop like, microsound, noise, improvisation and, by using voice material, the whole gets something radio-play like. I am not entirely sure which story is told here – well, other than something about Houdini of course, but no doubt something more metamorphical about claustrophobia or something alike. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of what they are doing in this concert – the element of editing was something I thought of before when it came to their work – but throughout this was all quite nice. A nice return! (FdW)
Address: http://geraeuschmanufaktur.bandcamp.com/
STREET PRIEST – MORE NASTY (cassette by Humbler)
Jacob Felix Heule is a drummer of entirely free music. He was/is a member of Ettrick, Basshaters and Sult: varying degrees of loud and soft improvised music. Here he has a new band called Street Priest, along with Matt Chandler on bass and Kristian Aspelin on guitar. Four lengthy pieces here on their first cassette, recorded in 2012 in their own rehearsal space in San Francisco. Here the free music style goes out the louder, rockier and noisier version of music. Think Harry Pussy indeed, as the label indicates. The guitar has the distortion full on while the bass and drums ramble on and on and on. They play with quite some vigour and aggression but also know how to pull back gear and take a more ‘silent’ position, allowing such notions as ‘silence’ and ‘introspection’ in their music. This all makes this an excellent tape of some mighty fine, free music. I had this on repeat for quite a while! (FdW)
Address: http://humbler.bandcamp.com
KOSTIS KILYMIS – KOMHTHS (cassette by Hideous Replica)
Although it’s a familiar name, I just realized I seem to know the name Kostis Kilymis better than I do his music. He’s been working with various musicians, but the only time I heard his solo music was back in Vital Weekly 618. Back then I detected some influence of people like Roel Meelkop or Marc Behrens, but on his new cassette he seems to be playing around with louder speakers, sine waves and feedback systems – perhaps perfectly fitting the aesthetics of Hideous Replica. I have no idea how this music is created, but it’s very minimal in development, drone like and static on the first of the two pieces on side A and rhythmically bouncing on the B-side, while the second on side A is also rhythmical but less organized. That sounded a bit like an art version of Pan Sonic meeting Steve Reich. I enjoyed that long piece on the second side more than the two on the first side, which seemed to me a bit too simplistic and working towards a singled out fragment explored too much. (FdW)
Address: http://hideousreplica.co.uk/
KUCHARCZYK – DEMON TECHNO W OKULARACH (cassette by Mik Musik)
I wasn’t paying a lot of attention this morning when I popped this tape into the player. I usually get up early, pick something more or less random and then play it. All right, so the word ‘techno’ in the title was perhaps a give away, but I have no idea what the rest means. But upon inspecting the information I learn that the title means ‘Techno Demon In Spectacles’, and so it is. Perhaps some techno music early morning is not the thing to do, but actually I must confess I kept playing this and I very much enjoyed this wake-up call. These thirteen pieces by the Mik Musik boss flow right into each other and make it possible to play this straight into your next DJ set while you’re at the bar ordering a sunny cocktail. It’s summer time music, boys and girls, playing endlessly at 120 beats per minute. Grab your Walkman and slide this in, and go out to the beach working your taint for tonight’s dancing. Funny and entertaining as hell! (FdW)
Address: http://www.mikmusik.org