RUDOLF EB.ER – BRAINNECTAR (2CD by Schimpfluch Associates) *
ZEITKRATZER & KEIJI HAINO (CD by Zeitkratzer Records) *
PAUL DOLDEN – WHO HAS THE BIGGEST SOUND? (CD by Starkland)
RYAN MCGUIRE – CIVILIAN (CD by Glasswing Music)
HERE & HERE & HERE –SAME (CD by Pfmentum)
VLATKO – SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE IN A COMMERCIAL FREE ZONE (CD by Pfmentum)
DAVID ROSENBOOM – ZONES OF INFLUENCE (2CD by Pogus)
SCHLAMMPEITZIGER – WHAT’S FRUIT (CD by Pingipung) *
FELIX KUBIN – CHROMODIOXIDGEDÄCHTNIS (CD and cassette by Gagarin Records) *
BANABILA & VAN GEEL – MUSIC FOR VIOLA AND ELECTRONICS (CD by Tapu Records) *
APALUSA – GHOST NOTES (LP by Low Point)
FRED BIGOT – LA VOIX DE LA ROUTE (10″ by Les Disques On Rotin Reunis/No School Today)
BIRGIT ULHER – LIVE AT TENI ZVUKA 2012 (CDR by 1000Füssler) *
MECHA/ORGA – 41:38 (CDR by More Mars) *
QUIET PLACE – RECOMPOSED (CDR by Theme Park For Ear) *
GOH LEE KWANG & JULIEN SKROBEK – DISCONNECTED (CDR by Theme Park For Ear) *
TIM BLECHMANN (CDR by Theme Park For Ear) *
PBK & HAL MCGEE – HAZARD IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM (cassette by Ruido Horrible)
PBK & RICHARD RAMIREZ (cassette by Unlimited Drift Recordings)
PBK & WARMTH – DEAD CITY (cassette by Ritual Hypnosis)
ACCLIMATE V.1 – NOISE PIGS (CD by Samboy Get Help) *
CLUB SOUND WITCHES – UPROK (CDR by Junk Mnemonic) *
LOST TRAIL – THE AFTERNOON VISION (double 3″CDR by Wist Records) *
AG DAVIS – AUDIO WORKS (cassette by Obsolete Units)
DEREK ROGERS/SINDRE BJERGA (cassette by Obsolete Units)
RUDOLF EB.ER – BRAINNECTAR (2CD by Schimpfluch Associates)
Much of the work carried out by Rudolf Eb.er in the last twenty-five or so years deals with the performance aspect of his work and following a flying start with his label Schimpfluch in the late 80s, releases became more sparse after that. These releases usually involves only a small group of artists, such as Eb.er himself (who went by the name Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock in the early days), Sudden Infant, G*Park and Dave Phillips. Recently the label has been revamped and following a double CD by Phillips, it’s now Eb.er’s turn to do a work that deals with ‘psychodynamic audio-environments build from specific nature-sounds and extreme acoustics, often including ecstatic elements on instruments of shamanic origin. Binaural beats as well as isochronic tones simulate a direct neural reaction’, the information says, but best heard/enjoyed most when using headphones and ‘appropriately high volume is recommended. Playback only on speakers does not fully induce the pyschoactive sonics’. I can vouch for that, as I heard it on speakers, and not on (loud volume) headphones. These two hours, forty-two pieces of music are all minimal and have a minimum of sonic information. There are lots of insect sounds, a bit of beats (minimally ticking), but also highly static sounds of white noise. Eb.er uses loops of some kind, I think and he does a great job, even when perhaps I missed out a loud by not following his rules. The great thing is that it sounds loud and perhaps noise-like, it didn’t feel like traditional noise. Electronic instruments didn’t seem to be in much use here; it’s all about a more acoustic form of noise. It has moved away from the cut ‘n paste/collage sound style that a lot of the Schimpfluch releases seem to have (maybe I am partly clouded here, having heard quite some Dave Phillips in recent years and not always something by the others). Eb.er shares Phillips’ interest in loud acoustic sound, doing recordings close to the microphone. The few pieces I was less pleased about where the ones which has vocalizations by Junko Hiroshige; it somehow seemed for me a bit out of place. Otherwise I think this is an excellent release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.schimpfluch.ch
ZEITKRATZER & KEIJI HAINO (CD by Zeitkratzer Records)
There is a picture on the cover, actually two but both are the same; it shows the members of Zeitkratzer but where is mister Haino? I don’t see him, but he’s surely present on this recording. Zeitkratzer, the ensemble for modern music from Berlin (all acoustic, improvisation meeting modern composition), met up with Haino is 2005 for the first time and already did a CD together, which I am not sure was reviewed in these pages. Here’s a new recording from a concert but there is no date on the cover or the press information. The idea was to merge voice and instruments even more than they did before, and as such it’s not easy to compare, if you didn’t hear the previous release. It opens with two wild pieces of concentrated outbursts of acoustic violence and Haino screaming out (using two different microphones). It’s nice, but perhaps also something you would expect. But then in ‘Roses’, tranquillity comes in and an excellent merging of voice and a few instruments at the time. A bit of prepared piano, a plink on the string instruments and you have this wonderful eleven-minute piece of music. After that things pick up again, but no longer as ‘violent’ as in the opening two pieces and Haino and Zeitkratzer perform three more excellent pieces of music. It’s all highly enjoyable, this cross road of improvisation and composition. (FdW)
Address: http://www.zeitkratzer.de/
PAUL DOLDEN – WHO HAS THE BIGGEST SOUND? (CD by Starkland)
Paul Dolden is a Canadian composer of electro-acoustic music. He started at a young age playing guitar, cello and violin. Exploring the possibilities of recording techniques he gradually entered the realms of electro-acoustic music. His music is often made from hundreds of digitally recorded instrumental and vocal performances, creating a virtual orchestra. This is his main tool. He became a very respected composer of electro-acoustic music, with his composition “L’Ivresse de la Vitesse” (Intoxicated by Speed) released by Empreintes Digitales, as a landmark recording. His new work ‘Who has the biggest sound?’ is his first release since nine years! This is due to the fact that Dolden follows very time-demanding procedures. For the title work “he worked full-time over a 3-year period from November 2005 to December 2008, logging over 6000 hours in the studio”. The second composition, ‘The Un-Tempered Orchestra’ took about 1800 studio hours. In both works one can identify the original instruments, as Dolden uses long samples. But also processed to an extent that cannot be realized by playing the instrument. There is a similarity with the work of Noah Creshevsky, who also sticks to identifiable acoustical sources for his electro-acoustic music. Concerning the structure of the pieces, Dolden’s music remains close to popular music, which is the case for other American composers on Starkland as well. This makes this music accessible and also humour is not far away. Some pieces sound as an speeded up Philip Glass-track. It is at a more detailed level that this multi-layered music moved me. One hears strange combinations of sounds and odd patterns that simply fascinate. (DM)
Address: http://www.starkland.com
RYAN MCGUIRE – CIVILIAN (CD by Glasswing Music)
McGuire is a musician from Boston, educated in classical composition, and also a bassist player. He runs the interesting avant metal band Ehnare. From these two lines one may think that McGuire is an eclectic musician. I think he is, as with ‘Civilian’, an album of 12 solo improvisations for double bass, McGuire shows again a totally other face. The improvisations show McGuire as a very skilled player with a musical vision. Some of his improvisations have a more or less melodic line in the centre. In other pieces he is more interested in just colouring with pure sound. In the opening piece ‘Imni’ it is as if one listens to some unknown animal making unidentifiable noises. At one place McGuire plays with short attacks, at others he builds his improvisations from long extended notes like in ‘The Ravens’. A piece as ‘At Night’ is almost lyrical and very sensitive. Every improvisation has its own character; in every piece McGuire tells a story. This way McGuire offers a varied and engaging overview of his vocabulary as an improviser on double bass. Everything is recorded live except the closing piece where McGuire also plays bowed glass. (DM)
Address: http://www.ryanmcguire.bandcamp.com
HERE & HERE & HERE –SAME (CD by Pfmentum)
VLATKO – SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE IN A COMMERCIAL FREE ZONE (CD by Pfmentum)
Trombonist Michael Vlatkovich continues to surprise. First it are the line ups of these two new projects that make me curious. Here & Here & Here is Anna Homler (vocal, percussion),
Jeff Kaiser (trumpet, flugelhorn), Scott Walton (acoustic bass), Rich West (drums, percussion) and Michael Vlatkovich (trombone, percussion). Recordings date from January this year. Of both records this is the most avant garde. Not sure this is completely improvised, but improvisation is a dominant element in these excursions where the players abstract from rhythm, melody and obvious thematic developments. They create open structures that receive shape through the concentrated interplay by the players. Homler sings her non-verbal lines that integrate very well with the patterns played by other musicians. Its music that is beyond jazz. More a kind of modern improvised chamber music. Very sophisticated and to the point music. With ‘Subjective Experience in a Commercial Free Zone’ we are more close to jazz realms. Vlatkovich is here in the company of Dominic Genova (electric bass), John ‘Vatos’Hernandez of Oingo Boingo-fame (drums, percussion) and Tom McNalley (electric guitar). Recorded a few months after the Here & Here & Here-album. It is especially McNalley’s guitar that impresses. He pulls a distorted, ‘plastic’ sounds from his guitar. His playing betrays experience with rock, funk and harmolodics. But McNalley developed his very own obstinate style. Great player. But also the others have their tricks and make this is a very enjoyable trip. From time to time it has swing and a groove, but with equal pleasure they depart into more free zones .(DM)
Address: http://www.pfmentum.com
DAVID ROSENBOOM – ZONES OF INFLUENCE (2CD by Pogus)
David Rosenboom is an interdisciplinary artist working as a composer, performer, educator, etc. In all disciplines he is interested in bringing innovations in the field of experimental music. Labels as New World Records, Mutable Music, Lovely Music Ltd., Tzadik and numerous others released compositions. ‘Zones of Influence’ was composed in 1984-1985 for drummer and percussionist William Winant. It is a five-part cycle of works for in which the percussionist’s performance is processed and transformed in a special way. It is presented here for the first time in its full length covering 2 cds. The accompanying booklet contains an extensive article about the work and its history. For sure another labour of love by the Pogus-staff. The composition consists of five parts. “Each of the five works in this set involves entirely different percussion setups, written scores and computer algorithms.” In one sentence, ‘Zones of Influence’ is a propositional cosmology activated in music. A work for percussion, computer and electronics introducing “new virtuoso performance techniques along with significant developments in real-time algorithmic composition and advanced interactive linking of percussion instruments with software”. It is not so much the acoustic percussive sounds that are altered. But the patterns played by Winant evoke a musical answer through real-time(!) processing. The software responds with musical information on the musical input by Winant, resulting in music where one feels both ingredients are interconnected and make one musical work. I liked the parts where Winant plays marimba and xylophone most. But also in the other parts there is a lot to be discovered and enjoyed. The software reacts in various ways on various aspects of Winants playing. Sometimes the electronic sounds and patterns contrast with the acoustical material at other moments it is the other way round. Overall the music has a specific intensity due to the contributions by the computer. Sometimes this felt as drama – something is really happening here –, at other moments just a hell of noise. (DM)
Address: http://www.pogus.com
SCHLAMMPEITZIGER – WHAT’S FRUIT (CD by Pingipung)
It must have been years now since I saw Schlammpeitziger live… maybe that was in 1999 or 2000. I remember it as a totally amazing concert, which blew me off my socks. A full, almost orchestral sound, but bouncing around like techno music. It sounded ten bontempi organs playing and the farisfa’s in-built drum modules bouncing. A fresh breeze on a dark festival night. I must admit I heard only little of their work on CD or vinyl following that, but listening to this new release, I am reminded of this fine night out. I could wonder where the development has been with Schlammpeitziger all these years, as this sounds still like a fine alternative orchestral, disco record. Apparently Jo Zimmermann, the man behind Schlammpeitziger no longer uses analogue synthesizers but mostly Ipad synth modules, but frankly I couldn’t tell the difference (being no snob at such things). I very much enjoyed this. It sounded perhaps retro, reminding of The Bionaut or such acts from also some time ago, but there is something truly captivating in this maximalist minimalist music. It bounces in a steady beat but there seems to be something happening everywhere, in every dynamic aspect of the music. That makes that all of this sound very rich and full. Music that makes me very happy, leaping around like child while cleaning up the house and then simply going out on my bike and continue with this on my Ipod. Music that re-charges the listener: what more could you possibly want from a release? (FdW)
Address: http://pingipung.de
FELIX KUBIN – CHROMODIOXIDGEDÄCHTNIS (CD and cassette by Gagarin Records)
Last year a lot of people celebrated 50 years of audiocassettes, that great portable thing to record and re-record any sound to. The invention, basically a culmination of various ideas for such portable devices and Phillips’ invention ‘won’ the technology race. Originally the idea was that people would record letters or rehearsals or anything else from the daily life but early 80 mostly used to tape records on (‘home taping is killing music’) and next to that there was of course the whole underground ‘do it yourself’ cassette movement came to life. Felix Kubin was already part of that scene in those early years with his duo Die Egozentrischen 2. These days he is best known as performer of synth pop/elektro music, but a smaller portion of his work is dedicated to making music for radio, sometimes taking the form of radio plays. He was commissioned to do this recording by the Deutscher Musikrat and it’s not easy to say if these nine pieces should be regarded as a radio play or an album of assorted pieces. It’s for me the latter. These pieces deal with all sorts of aspects of cassettes, the specific characteristics of the medium, and Kubin uses a lot of recordings from his own archive, recordings he made as a teenager, ranging from a serious piece of improvisation sounds such as ‘Spulen’, but also a funny do-it-yourself recording of kitchen sounds in ‘Geräusche’, complete with a count-in and the start-stop recording of radio sounds in ‘Radio Collage’, perhaps the simplest of forms to create your own music, owing no instruments. Admit: everybody did this at one point in his or her life. All of these pieces have a contemporary treatment, the history embedded in a new composition, and that’s what makes this a great release. Of course there is a cassette part of the package, which takes all of this a bit further. One side with just random sounds and no story, and on the other side, among other ditties, an interview with former Phillips employee Wim Lagenhoff, who was also a member of the Electric Chamber Music Ensemble, an anarchistic music collective from the sixties. This is all in a more strict documentary form but it works actually quite well. (FdW)
Address: http://gagarinrecords.com
BANABILA & VAN GEEL – MUSIC FOR VIOLA AND ELECTRONICS (CD by Tapu Records)
Michel Banabila is slowly becoming a household name in the world of Vital Weekly, and here he has a new work with Oene van Geel, who plays viola on all five pieces, and also Stroh violin on the fifth. Banabila himself plays doepfer A-100 analogue modular synth and logic pro on all five, and also ocarina and voice on the fifth. I never heard of Van Geel before, but he works in jazz, improvised music, as well as creating his own compositions. I started without any expectations to play this and very quickly into the first piece ‘Sinus En Snaar’ I was hooked. These five pieces are all heavy on the use of the violin, merging with the synthesizer, which is fine tuned to play some string sounds as well. This is not the work of improvisation, I would like to think, but rather the work of thorough composition and refining sounds. It’s also a work of studio techniques I would think with carefully constructing various layers of sound together. But as usual with this sort of thing I might be entirely wrong and maybe they did play this in real time. Maybe it’s something that Banabila crafted from a bunch of recordings by Van Geel and added his own sounds to? Whatever the case is this is a great release, which sounds like more than excellent mix between modern classical music (more Arvo Part than anything plink plonk, except perhaps ‘Dondergod’), improvised music, electronic soundscapes and perhaps much more in between the cracks of all of this. But the beautiful minimalist approach of ‘Nothing But Blue Sky’ is just beyond any categorization. This is a most refined release, one that fits the sombre, grey day, with the changing of the season. (FdW)
Address: http://www.banabila.bandcamp.com
APALUSA – GHOST NOTES (LP by Low Point)
Dan Layton is the man behind Apalusa, and ‘Ghost Notes’ is his third album, but it’s for me the introduction to his work. So I can’t compare it to ‘Obadiah’, which was ‘a dense, murky affair, filled apocalyptic imagery and impenetrable layers of sub-sonic dirt’. Apparently Layton now uses ‘composition by subtraction’: just recording a whole bunch of sound material, and then removing everything you don’t need and strip it down to what you absolutely need (or want) to be present in the final mix. To end Layton uses guitar drone, granular synthesis, field recordings and manipulated vocals, although I must admit I really didn’t hear the latter at all. This is all quite dark and moody music, as you can imagine (well, perhaps not), stripped down to a few notes and tones, but each of them with an excellent rich quality to it. You don’t need a massive amount of sound information. Just one or two sounds, some sound effects maybe, and you can easily make it work together in a really refined way. That’s what Apalusa is doing with these pieces. He creates space between the sounds in order to make spacious music. It’s quite nocturnal music, even when I am playing this during a somewhat grey and rainy day; it’s oke to that do that. This music is the soundtrack for grey and rainy days. It’s all very quiet music, distant perhaps, but also full of warmth, full of hope and despair – oddly enough at the same time. It depends, no doubt, on the mood you are in. I think this is a great record. I must say I didn’t hear anything I haven’t heard before – think: Machinefabriek, Dirk Serries, Fennesz on a very ambient day – but while so, who cares? This is surely one hell of a fine record. Maybe the only negative aspect is that with some of the more subtle passages, the crackles of vinyl get a bit annoying. But hey, that’s just me and my love of CDs. (FdW)
Address: http://www.low-point.com
FRED BIGOT – LA VOIX DE LA ROUTE (10″ by Les Disques On Rotin Reunis/No School Today)
The first time I ever had a double groove 12″ was M’s ‘Popmusic’ back in the late 70s. If you dropped the needle on the record you had a surprise whatever song would be playing. I always loved that idea of double grooves (also other possibilities vinyl has to offer, such as backward grooves, lock grooves, spiral grooves) but they aren’t done a lot anymore. Fred Bigot, whom we otherwise know as Electronicat, took some time off and travelled in the USA where he did some field recordings, which ended up on this record; previous parts where used in a weekly online sound report, an installation and a performance. Of course, you can also find it a bit annoying; having to get up to your turntable finding that song you didn’t just hear. The music here, five pieces in total, is not entirely what you expect from Electronicat; no bouncing elektro rhythms, but sampled voices, acoustic sounds and such like, even when one of the songs (which I wondered) has that pounding beat and guitars. This is the a-side. The three pieces on the parallel B-side are more abstract in nature, using samples of field recordings and voice material. Nice stuff, and surely something you won’t hear Bigot doing a lot. Maybe a download code would be handy for this, I was thinking. (FdW0
Address: http://ldrr.com
BIRGIT ULHER – LIVE AT TENI ZVUKA 2012 (CDR by 1000Füssler)
Here we have a release with a lengthy solo piece by Birgit Ulher (trumpet, radio, speaker, objects), as well as a trio piece of her with Ilia Belorukov (ipad with sine waves, mini-speakers with preparations, objects) and Andrey Popovskiy (motors, ebows, mini-amp, dictaphone, contact mic, surfaces and objects). All of this recorded at the Teni Zvuka festival in St. Petersburg finest hangout for experimental music (humble opinion and all that) the Experimental Sound Gallery. Ulher’s piece is a great one. The intimacy of her playing the trumpet set against whatever sounds she produces with radio, speaker and objects – producing a much bigger sound with those – works really well. It seems as if she is using pre-recorded sound material of herself along with real time playing. A highly vibrant piece of collage like qualities, cutting in and out of the mix with all sort of weird interruptions, start/stop motion but then in real time editing, on the spot, in concert. It moves between the quiet introspective side and more dynamic louder parts; here the trumpet is the instrument and the object, along with the additional instruments/objects. An excellent piece.
The trio piece moves along similar lines, but here there is even more a furious interaction at work: lots of buzzing and rattling sounds, more collage like and start/stop on all levels with all players. Somehow this seems to be the somewhat more noisy of the two pieces, but it’s all in the realm of acoustic noise and it works very well. Another fine piece, which makes this, a great release all around. (FdW)
Address: http://www.1000fussler.com
MECHA/ORGA – 41:38 (CDR by More Mars)
Although Greek born composer Yiorgis Sakellariou rather not listens to older yet unreleased pieces (or perhaps also not to released ones either – “I feel a bit uncomfortable when I cannot remember what lead me to make any compositional decisions”) he recently heard one such piece from 2009 and one from 2011, which he reworked in December last year and which are now released. Both of these pieces use only field recordings, it seems, but they might as well be electronics of some kind, especially in the opening of the first piece. I never know whether Sakellariou’s cuts his pieces into repeating phrases or if they are presented in some real time mode. It’s something to think about when you play his music, although perhaps part of the fun lies in not knowing what he does. Sometimes his music sounds very ‘industrial’, more in a machine like sense of the word, rather than in the phrase ‘industrial music’, and sometimes it’s all very quiet – like a post industrial waste land. That sums up the first piece here. The second piece is more a collage of various acoustic sources mixed together, like rail carts, machine noise and objects being played close to the microphone. Sounds afar and close by, mixed together in a wonderful manner. It’s off the two pieces the one that has more action, more sources perhaps and also the more chaotic one. While I thought that both pieces were great, I had a slight preference for the more concentrated and controlled outbursts of the first piece. Both, as said, both are great. (FdW)
Address: http://www.moremars.org
QUIET PLACE – RECOMPOSED (CDR by Theme Park For Ear)
GOH LEE KWANG & JULIEN SKROBEK – DISCONNECTED (CDR by Theme Park For Ear)
TIM BLECHMANN (CDR by Theme Park For Ear)
Three new releases on Theme Park For Ear, Goh Lee Kwang’s imprint for more spontaneous releases, improvised music and whatever else impromptu from the world of electronic music. The first is by a quartet of busy bees: Ilia Belorukov (alto-saxophone, objects, ipod & mini-amp), Pedro Chambel (sinewaves & noises), Bruno Duplant (organ & concept), Kurt Liedwart (analog synthesizer & electronics). “Truly free adaption of an Edgar Allan Poe novel, ‘the fall of the house of Usher’, the piece was lately recomposed”, it says on the cover. I have read the story (albeit ages ago), but had I not read this on the cover, I think I would not have gotten this out of the music. It seems that these four players set out to play concentrated bits of a longer piece, with tiny gaps in between. All of this is course highly carefully done, with slow developments, small changes, deep sine waves and minimalist moves. It’s a great music for sure, but I didn’t get the supposed narrative aspect of it. Also I thought it was a bit too long at forty-nine minutes for the amount of variation it had to offer.
Labelboss Goh Lee Kwang exchanged some sound files with Julien Skrobeck a few years ago and recently set himself to work on it, adding some music of his own. This is released without Skrobeck’s permission, as apparently they lost contact, which may account for the title of the piece. It’s not on the cover, or on the website, what they play here, but my best guess would this is all to do with electronic sound and/or some form of laptop processing. It’s a kind of organ like sound, but then more digital, as well as sustaining and moving at the same time. I have a feeling that this work has been made on the spot rather than through some meticulous compositional process. Quite enjoyable but not an excellent release, also if not a bit long.
The final new release is by Tim Blechmann, who recorded his piece at Moka Bar Studio in Vienna but it is composed at Findars, Kuala Lumpur, who will get all benefits from this release. This is a twenty-nine minute composition for modular synth, recorded at a rather low volume. I have no idea why that is. It has the form – graphic wise if you open up the file on your computer – of a cigar. Long fade in, short fade out, stasis in the middle. I turned up the volume quite a bit for this, and loved the more violent, louder drone aspects of this piece. Very spacious, yet also very dark, like everything’s been sucked into this dark matter vacuum. I have no idea why this had to be this soft: by putting up the volume quite bit it unveiled a lot more beauty, I think. And at just under thirty minutes it had exactly the right length. (FdW)
Address: http://themeparkforear.blogspot.com
PBK & HAL MCGEE – HAZARD IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM (cassette by Ruido Horrible)
PBK & RICHARD RAMIREZ (cassette by Unlimited Drift Recordings)
PBK & WARMTH – DEAD CITY (cassette by Ritual Hypnosis)
ACCLIMATE V.1 – NOISE PIGS (CD by Samboy Get Help)
There was something to choose here: four collaborations by Philip B. Klingler and I started with the one he recorded with Hal McGee. Like PBK (short for Philip B. Klingler as you guessed), McGee is a long serving member of the underground cassette scene. Both of their apparatus involve synthesizers, sound effects, tape machines (lo- and hi-fi) and radio interferences. And no doubt much more. Their collaborative tape doesn’t say much else, and we just step into a sixty-minute of an endless stream of sounds. According tot he label’s website ‘it registers McGee’s live recording of original PBK recordings while on a walk though the campus of the University of Florida’. Captured perhaps with dictaphone and transformed, mastered even, straight the cassette. It’s quite a conceptual piece I think, but it has a great lo-fi, low-resolution sound to it, a sort of psychedelica for acid casualties perhaps. I quite enjoyed this as it very much reminded of these long form (no-form?) releases from the 80s.
Even less information is on the rather short release by PBK and Richard Ramirez, founder of Black Leather Jesus, and who was in tons and tons of other groups. Apparently this collaboration was in the works for some time, but it’s still quite short, twenty-minutes or so. Ramirez’ music may a noisy ring to it, or so it seems, the dark pieces on this tape sound rather low in volume, and that adds a certain creepiness to it. Like a gigantic beast is lurking beneath Loch Ness, just waiting for the right moment to get out of it. The B-side is a bit louder and has very much a science fiction like character, I thought. Both of these sides – I am not sure if they were actually different pieces – sounded very much like an interesting collage of sounds, cut together in a most intelligent way, but maybe this sort of delicacy would be enjoyed even better when it would have been released on a CDR.
A bit more information but no website for the label is the collaboration with Steev Thompson, who calls himself Warmth. Here we enter something louder, noisier and grittier, certainly at the start of the tape. It’s hard to say how this was made, but it sounds like the clanging of metal in ‘Imprecise Exile’ which is quite industrial as it is, but ‘Languages Emerging’ has the distortion on a way more subtle level (unless copying caused some problems, but I doubt that). I like their subtle approach to noise in this cassette better than the more random attacks at making as much noise as possible, which you can easily find on other labels by other bands. And there is surely something subtle to be enjoyed here. PBK and Warmth know how to build up from sheer silence to hellish noise (well…) in ‘Secret Set Of Careful Innuendos’. Quite a most enjoyable release!
On CD we find PBK as one half of Acclimate with his cousin Artemis Kowalski. They started in the mid-90s in Michigan (“after Hunting Lodge and before Wolf Eyes”) and played a couple of concerts. Kowalski moved to New Zealand, but after thirteen years they present ‘Noise Pigs’ as their new album, engineered and mastered by Martin Bowes of Attrition. I am not sure how that worked: did they go to the UK to record the album, or was there some help through the Internet? Here we have fourteen pieces of music that uses a lot of rhythm. Coming from rhythm machines no doubt, but also, perhaps, from digital sources, such as Ableton live. If industrial music is something you can relate too, think of the more US than UK version of industrial music. Lots of wild rhythms, which hold together a bunch of noise. Along that go vocals with tons of sound effects, humming like a bunch of demented monks, and machine like sounds. Sometimes the rhythm reminded me of techno music, or even dubstep; all of which I think was pretty nice, well played, with a fair amount of variation thrown in, but it’s not really the kind of music I personally like very much, I must admit. It’s a bit too heavy, too much leather trousers, too much stomping around, pathos and such things (in short: too gothic?). I liked the album best when it was more quiet, rhythm pushed to the background, or altogether absent from it all, ambient in its most industrial (read: quite some reverb) form. I am sure however that from these four releases, lots of people will find this them most accessible one. (FdW)
Address: http://ruidohorrible.wordpress.com/
Address: http://unlimiteddrift.blogspot.nl/
Address: http://www.samboygethelp.co.nz
CLUB SOUND WITCHES – UPROK (CDR by Junk Mnemonic)
Australia’s JM reports again, and now I learned it stands for Junk Mnemonic, which means I now also have a website address for them. Behind Club Sound Witches (nice name! Makes you hungry, right?) we find Nicola Morton & Matt Earle and I am not sure if I ever heard of them before. Like the previous releases on this label, the cover indicates an A-side and a B-side, and again it’s two pieces of ten minutes. Maybe there is a conceptual edge to this, which I miss out upon? The music is a kinda of vaguely industrial, rhythmic, revolving in loops of synthesized sounds, distorted radio sounds and all of that sounds bit formless. It moves and it moves but not necessarily has heads or tails. ‘Uprok (B)’ seems of the two the more coherent piece, with a stricter form of beats on top and noise below the decks. Maybe a bit like Astral Social Club once sounded. A kind of demented techno music at work here and it works quite well, better than the noisier and more chaotic ‘Uprik (A)’. It had a head nod groove, which was all right. I wouldn’t mind a bit more of that… (FdW)
Address: https://junkmnemonic.bandcamp.com/
LOST TRAIL – THE AFTERNOON VISION (double 3″CDR by Wist Records)
An excellent package with fine printed cards and two 3″CDRs inside them. It seems to be dealing with maps, soil analysis, and such like; almost like a scientific report but then presented as an object of art. Charts, maps, and photos: it looks simply great. The whole thing, visual and music, is courtesy of Lost Trail, a duo of Zachary Corsa (guitars, piano, field recordings, samples, loops, noise, machines, synths, organs, percussion, drums, harpischord, banjo, dulcimer, melodica, glockenspiel, thumb piano, bass, voice, and more) and Denny Wilkerson Corsa (field recordings, samples, loops, noise, machines, percussion, guitars, voice, organ, glockenspiel, and more). This mysterious art package needs some mysterious music, and that’s what it gets here. It would be too easy to say that this is just some ‘drone’ like music; it surely owns to that world, but Lost Trail plays more than just that. Their pieces are short and to the point, but also don’t sound like a sketch, or like a half-baked idea. It’s much more varied than that: a piece like ‘Snowy Hill, Black Flames’ is almost like a noise piece. That louder edge of drone music is in more pieces, but also the quieter and more introspective drone is never far away. Lost Trail takes the listener not a path but on a journey and visits various grounds of musical interest. Throughout a most enjoyable release, both visually and aurally. (FdW)
Address: http://wistrec.com/
AG DAVIS – AUDIO WORKS (cassette by Obsolete Units)
DEREK ROGERS/SINDRE BJERGA (cassette by Obsolete Units)
Much of what Kommissar Hjuler releases in a series called “Die Antizipation des Generalized Other” moves out of the reach of Vital Weekly as these are editions of a handful copies but AG Davis now re-issues his work from that series, along with ‘A Short History Of Decay’. These were originally released on CDRs in editions of nine and seven copies, respectively. The first side deals with a text that is part of the deal when you participate in this, and Davis treats it mildly with samples. Nice, but not great. I liked the other side of this actually much more. Here too sounds are sampled in a rather rudimentary way, but the outcome is a very nice composition, leaping around in a crude form of modern electronic composition. Played with the naive charm of child but it works very well. Maybe a bit too short, I thought, whereas the briefness of the first side was no problem.
The other new release by Obsolete Units is a split cassette by Derek Rogers and Sindre Bjerga. I am not sure why these ended up on one cassette. Rogers offers one of his guitar pieces, which he recorded in the summer of 2013 in Los Angeles. Recently he decided to do without the drone music and playing the guitar ‘as it’s supposed to be’, even he still adds quite some effects; at the end of this piece it seems like these effects have taken over the piece. It’s an excellent piece with a somewhat cruder form of ambient than usual, and something that also touches upon the ground of improvisation and thus finds its own hybrid form. On the other side we find ‘Makeshift Language’, a live recording by Sindre Bjerga from 2011 when he played in the Ukraine. I am not sure if Bjerga uses any voice material in this particular piece, but there is a nice mild distortion going on here, which works quite well. Distorted but still operating on the level of ambient music, via some loops going around, and fed through some sound effects. It slowly gets quieter when the piece evolves. It’s the usual (?) great lo-fi sound of Bjerga at work here. It dies out very quietly when just a few sparse sounds is all what remains. Excellent stuff. (FdW)
Address: http://www.obsoleteunits.com