HELIOS & HESS – LUMP (CD by Everest Records) *
SUPERSILENT – 12 (CD by Rune Grammofon) *
TESS SAID SO – I DID THAT TOMORROW (CD by Preserved Sound) *
MALFINIA ENSEMBLO – VARSOVIA (CD by Kvitnu) *
TOTAL IMPROVISATION TROOP – MAN OF WAR (CD by Atrito-Afeito) *
ASTMA FEAT. ANTON NIKKILA – DOM SESSIONS (CD by Moozak) *
WILDER GONZALES AGREDA – LIMA NORTE METAMUSICA (CD by Superspace Records)
EVENTLESS PLOT – STRUCTURES (CD by Creative Sources Recordings) *
MOHAMMAD – ZO REL DO (CD by Antifrost) *
MOHAMMAD – LAMNE GASTAMA (CD by Antifrost) *
GIOVANNI LAMI/NICOLA RATTI (split 7″ by Granny Records)
BJ NILSEN & STILLUPPSTEYPA/ANLA COURTIS – GOLDEN CIRCLE AFTERNOON (LP by Editions Mego) *
SIGTRYGGUR BERG SIGMARSSSON & TOM SMITH – BREATH TO FALSE SINOGRIME (cassette by Belgian Home Optimisation)
$.99 DREAMS – SPEI RES (LP by Draft Records)
SLEEP GUNNER – PLAYS THE LOUVIN BROTHERS SONGBOOK VOL. 1 (LP by The Butcher’s Voice)
THOMAS DIMUZIO – AMID ZERO ECHO (double 10″ by Substantia Innominata)
ROVAR17 – CHARLIE FOXTROT (CDR by Unsigned Label) *
NOJZERR – TIMEWIND (CDR by Unsigned Label) *
HAVIZAJ EXPERIMENTAL NOISE COMPILATION #1 (CDR by Unsigned Label) *
PARALLAX TAPELOOP – TROIS BALADES (cassette by Tanuki Records)
VOICEOVER – NERVOUS BREAKTHROUGH (cassette by Tanuki Records)
SHELBY BRYANT’S WURSTMUZIK (cassette by Tanuki Records)
ANTOINE PANACHE – DESPERATE ATTEMPTS AT FINGER-LICKING BEAUTY (cassette by Barreuh Records)
ANTOINE PANACHE – 60 SECONDS MAN (cassette by Barreuh Records)
LEITMOTIV LIMBO – LIMBO/WIND SWEPT (cassette, private)
HELIOS & HESS – LUMP (CD by Everest Records)
The first time I heard the first two albums by Kluster I was shocked/amazed/surprised by the religious texts being recited, but I later learned this had to do with the label’s background. When I started to play this CD I quickly heard ‘hail Mary’, as recited by actor Marcus Signer, but here it is part of a piece that deals with Alp Blessing, an ancient Swiss tradition, which is also the title of the first piece. The other piece is ‘Reisläufer’, which means with Swiss Mercenaries, a military service for many European rulers; these days only the pope uses them. This CD is part of a book, which I didn’t get, so I can’t comment on that. The music is by Mike Reber and Christoph Hess (whom you might know as Strotter Inst). Together they only use ‘analogue equipment and field recordings’, which may or may not have found their roots in Swiss alp life. I am not sure, but perhaps I am missing out something by not seeing the book, what this music is all about. Two long pieces which operate as a stream of sounds rather than one long composition; it’s more like they stuck together sound events, fading them together, something maybe even layering them together and much of this could easily be qualified as industrial noise. It rattles and bursts occasionally like good ol’ fashioned power electronics. This music works best however when they tone down a bit, let their field recordings from the Alps play a bit more and let things develop in a more natural way. They can do that too, and they could easily dispense with the noise. And maybe they should be doing a bit shorter pieces and work them out into a more composed form. (FdW)
Address: http://www.everestrecords.ch
SUPERSILENT – 12 (CD by Rune Grammofon)
Somewhere in the back of my head I know Supersilent is a famous group, but I am not sure why. I think I heard some of the earliest works, then a long time nothing at all, so ’12’ is me getting back to know them. I usually leave promos from Rune Grammofon to Dolf Mulder, but usually have a listen myself first and I decided to keep this. Supersilent is a trio of Arve Henriksen (trumpet, electronics), Stale Storlokken (keyboards, electronics) and Helge Sten (audio virus, electronics), and they play music together through ways of improvisation. They duly record all of this and hand it out to Deathprod – which is Helge Sten actually – who then produces then the music. I am not sure how that works: does he have access to the multi-track tapes? Or perhaps he takes everything apart and uses the studio as new instrument? Whatever the case might be, the music is pretty interesting. It’s all very electronic, a bit dark, but Henriksen’s trumpet add a particular smoky nightclub jazz feeling to it; maybe like a film noir soundtrack. The jazz element is not very strong per se, but places nice accents in the music. The music is very moody and textured, something which I don’t seem to remember from the ‘1-3’ box set which I heard years ago, which somehow was reminded here as more ‘deconstructed rock’ music. Now that Supersilent no longer has a drummer, this is perhaps the logical direction to move in? These soundscapes are short (usually between three and four minutes) and to the point, each with it’s own distinct atmosphere, yet all of them together creating a great coherent album. Excellent release! (FdW)
Address: http://www.runegrammofon.com
TESS SAID SO – I DID THAT TOMORROW (CD by Preserved Sound)
While I never heard of Preserved Sound before, they seem to have a nice catalogue, which includes Richard Youngs, North Side Drive, Adrian Lane, Vitaly Beskrovny, Visionary Hours and Richard Fromby and their interest lies in ‘ambient, modern-classical, instrumental and acoustic musicians’. Here they present me a duo of which I never heard before, Tess Said So, being Rasa Daukus on piano and Will Larsen on drums. The press text says of ‘I Did That Tomorrow’, that it ‘is a collection of pieces about initiation and reaction, travel and stillness, simplicity and mutation. The sound world of piano, percussion, and electronics shifts through organic, improvisatory, imperfect patterns’ and it is ‘infused with pop, jazz, technology and electronica’. Seeing this is from Australia, my favourite jazz country at the moment, I am all ears. Now while this is a bit different, it shares, at the same time a similar jazzy sensibility. However it seems that Tess Said So is more about shorter pieces, which can as easily be a bit more pop based, or modern classical; it seems to be crossing all of these areas as easily. This is quite moody music, or so it seems to me, even when the title piece has a nice uplifting, minimal pace to it. Throughout the album, these eleven pieces are quite a varied bunch, even given their more moody character. Various shades of grey, black and white. I quite enjoyed this release, and had it on repeat for the good part of an entire afternoon, while doing a variety of chores around the house, and while resting from that and drinking coffee. Autumn leaves fall and Tess Said So. (FdW)
Address: http://www.preservedsound.com
MALFINIA ENSEMBLO – VARSOVIA (CD by Kvitnu)
One of the things I always thought about is this: how would Pan Sonic sound when they would be using a real drummer. Just for a moment I though Kvitnu shared my curiosity and that the Malfinia Ensemblo is the answer. But this is not entirely the case. Malfinia Ensemble is a group made out Andi Stecher (drums, percussion, composition) and The Norman Conquest (analog synthesizers, electric bass, electric cello, charango, composition, recording, sound manipulation, mixing & mastering). They met while touring in Europe and recorded this album in 2012 in Warsaw. Five shorter pieces can be found here and one longer. It’s close to home of Kvitnu’s brand of forceful, loud and rhythmic music (hence the Pan Sonic connection/idea I had, but this actually a bit further removed from that), but there is also a great form of sound scaping, sound sculpting on this album. Introspective at times, but usually held together with the forceful bang on the kit. The first five pieces are relatively short and to the point and usually quite hard rhythmic affairs with more contemplative moments. For the final piece, roughly one half of the length of the release, ‘La Universo Estas Atomo’, Malfania Ensemble goes out to more improvised music, inspired by Warsaw (the city, not the band), on a grey November day when this was recorded. This is also heavy, but more chaotic, due to the improvisational character of the music. It has actually quite a symphonic character this music (maybe they were thinking of Bowie’s ‘Warsaw’ too?). It works well, but I preferred their more shorter and concentrated outbursts as showcased by the first five pieces. Quite a nice release, given it’s more different nature, and as such as fine addition to the Kvitnu catalogue. (FdW)
Address: http://www.kvitnu.com
TOTAL IMPROVISATION TROOP – MAN OF WAR (CD by Atrito-Afeito)
The third release on Atrito-Afeito is an album by the Total Improvisation Troop, also known as TIT. Besides musicians from previous releases Karoline Leblanc and Paulo K Ferreira Lopes I don’t think I recognized many names, so I’ll rather mention some of the instruments used: synthesizer, gongs, cymbals, hair clipper, shakers & flexatone, alto saxophone, jaw harp & toys, modified bulbul tarang, trumpet, trombone, electric guitar (3 times), bamboo flute, autonomous singing bowl system and home made electric lyre, double bass, cookie tin and drums. All of this played by twelve people on the opening (title-) piece here, which lasted thirty-three minutes. I was too lazy to get up this morning when I first heard this and for the first ten minutes of this piece I thought it was all a bit too much free jazz for me, and suited perhaps Dolf Mulder best; but as I was lazy the CD kept playing and I heard it all. Luckily TIT knows how to change a tune here and there. The element of free jazz never disappears – and it’s perhaps the nervous playing of the wind instruments that I not always get along with. I found the other five pieces of more interest and they too have a large line-up but the playing seems to be more coherent, i.e. of the variety in which people listen to what others are doing and adding their own part when need or deemed necessary. The role of wind instruments seemed to be a bit less on these pieces, but ‘Salmagundi’ also doesn’t escape the tag of free jazz. Altogether this is hard core improvisation; not easy to digest, even when you are completely open to such music. (FdW)
Address: http://atrito-afeito.com
ASTMA FEAT. ANTON NIKKILA – DOM SESSIONS (CD by Moozak)
Those recycled card sleeves may look nice, but it also tends to make the surface of the CD a bit dirty, so it looks second hand even when unplayed. Astma is a duo of Alexei Borisov on guitar, TB303, dictophone and vocie and Olga Nosova on drums, voice, effects and guitar on one piece here. They started out in spring 2009 and very shortly after that they did their first recording at The Dom CC, a venue in Moscow, with an excellent recording facility. As these things go, Borisov’s good friend Anton Nikila was in town to play at a Borisov curated event, so he’s present on this recording as well, playing guitar, laptop and on one piece drums (yes, the one on which Nosova plays guitar). No overdubs or editing were used here and the music is created spontanously. The music here, the starting point of Astma as it is, sounds what we learned from recordings that were made later but released earlier. It’s fine combination of the louder edges of rock music, the energy of punk rock and the introspection of improvised music. It’s not that this is always loud and heavy, bursting with energy; Astma surely also knows how to create inner space, making things a bit more sparse, and surely it’s Nikkila who adds a bit of this sparseness/spaciousness of this music, such as in the opening piece ‘Skus’, but it’s followed by the heavy free noise rocker of ‘Speedbeat’. So this CD walks a tightrope between these two ends and they manage to this really well. It makes up a highly varied CD – between these seven pieces, but sometimes within the space of a piece. Great, furious release, this one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.moozak.org
WILDER GONZALES AGREDA – LIMA NORTE METAMUSICA (CD by Superspace Records)
Wilder Gonzales Agreda is active in the avant garde music scene from Peru since 1995. He has released about 60 albums at several labels worldwide. In 2003 he started his own label Superspace Records and is active in several musical projects. His artist statement is “to harmonize with the endless cosmos.” And indeed, this solo album is very spacy. The synthesizer sounds are psychedelic and the voice is guided with a lot of echo or delay. The album starts with a light track in which voice and synths are the main ingredients, with almost no low tones. The second track “All I Want” has another atmosphere than the other tracks on the album. A female voice somewhere in the background is singing and an ongoing cello-alike sound and some electronics. Great dark atmosphere! “Pangea” is like a communication between two people on big distance. Lots of soundwaves disturb their communication and the words can not be heard by all these filters. Nice SF track about non-communication in higher atmospheres. Wilder Gonzales Agreda combines in “Noguchi” a ongoing beat on a cymbal and around this minimal rhythm he drums himself wild at (I guess) children instruments and a synth with delay. Crazy music for crazy people. The last three tracks are beautiful composition by synths and voice. Especially “Mi Frecuencia” is great, it starts with some minimal fast repeating tones which slowly change in frequency. It’s like an uptempo heartbeat and again some voices far from space are interrupting the beats. Great adventurous track. (JKH)
Address: http://superspacerecords.bandcamp.com/
EVENTLESS PLOT – STRUCTURES (CD by Creative Sources Recordings)
MOHAMMAD – ZO REL DO (CD by Antifrost)
MOHAMMAD – LAMNE GASTAMA (CD by Antifrost)
GIOVANNI LAMI/NICOLA RATTI (split 7″ by Granny Records)
You may not believe this, but these four arrived on the same day, with no other mail. All four releases are from Greece, in three packages. I lump them together in one review, as it seems to me an exciting thing to have all of this weird music from one country. First we have the improvisational skills of a trio from Thessaloniki, Eventless Plot, being Vasilis Liolios (inside piano, e-bow piano, objects, psaltiri), Yiannis Tsirikoglou (objects, guitar, electronics MAX/MSP) and Aris Giatas (piano) who have two guests on this CD, each on a one track only (leaving one track just for Eventless Plot): Chris Gundy (bass clarinet) and Luis Portal (percussion, objects). The music of Eventless Plot is on that middle ground of improvisation, a bit of jazz but also a fair amount of electronics and electroacoustic sounds. All of which merges nicely together. The bell like sounds of ‘Points Of Attraction’ might as easily be played in real-time on metallic percussion; cymbals or such like, but also be using something like computer treatments. I thought the piece with Cundy was a bit too much of a normal piece of improvised music, but the other two showcased their music best: introspective, intense in that solo piece by them, scratching and scraping with a full on work on objects and mingling with sine waves on the piece with Portal, called ‘co_exist’, this was a more piercing work of highly interested noise. Maybe an extra piece on the CD would have been nice, as thirty-four minutes seems rather short.
Of the two releases by Mohammad, ‘Zo Rel Do’ was already released in spring and ‘Lamne Gastama’ was just released; both of these are part of a trilogy that explores the geographical area between 34 and 42 degrees North and 19 and 29 E, which, if I’m not mistaken is roughly the area of the Mediterranean Sea. Mohammad is a trio of Nikos Veliotis (cello), Coti K. (contrabass) and Ilios (oscillators), and they describe their music as ‘chamber doom, religious, extremely dark, harrowing, monolithic, born in heaven, sonic rape, electrocution’, a lot of their music deals with low frequencies and dark textures, but I think there are some important differences between both releases. ‘Zo Rel Do’ seems to me less ‘heavy’ than the ‘Lamne Gastama’ one. On the latter the two stringed instruments are played ‘con furioso’, ‘tres fort’, like it is a vicious animal that need attacking. In ‘Tik Tromakton’ the oscillators from Ilios start out and it seems one of the rare occasions we hear him. Maybe, yet I might be entirely mistaken, but with many of the subtle low frequencies Ilios uses in his music, it might be better to witness this in concert at an appropriate volume, which may be lost at home (unless you want some domestic disturbance). The four pieces on ‘Lamne Gastama’ seemed to be more intense than the ones of ‘Zo Rel Do’, and evoke a feeling of oppression. Maybe even a very odd take on doom metal I was thinking. Having said all of that, I don’t think ‘Zo Rel Do’ is a more lightweight record, but it certainly reflects a different life in that geographical area I think. The seven pieces here are a bit shorter than on the other one, and while ‘Grabe’ and ‘Kabilar Mace’ are quite forceful, ‘Urso Nesto’ seems to be entirely build of field recordings and ‘Marik’ reaches for a more contemplative mood, or even a sense of mourning in ‘Samarina’. Both are excellent releases and with humble apologies to my neighbours for playing this at a considerable volume in the last few days.
Granny Records is from Greece, but the two musicians here are from Italy, of which I don’t I heard from Giovanni Lami before. His piece is called ‘Johnny Leech’ and he uses a hand-made synth known as the cacophonator and a memory man (a delay machine), ‘working mainly on static electricity and leakage current in the synth used without any kind of power supply’. It makes up for a nice piece of chaotic lo-fi sound, which is put forward through methods of improvisation. Quite a nice piece and it fits the format very well. The crackling of vinyl surely adds an extra layer. Nicola Ratti uses a modular synth and tape loops, of what seems to be percussive material, but the rhythm is broken down and the whole thing has a nice gentle feel to it, even when it bumps, clicks and glides, but the synth makes it more subtle. Here too one could say this perfect for a 7″: one doesn’t have the idea that this is cut from a longer part as is not unusual with this kind music. Especially Ratti seems to have worked out his music as a composition, which is very nice. (FdW)
Address: http://www.creativesourcesrec.com
Address: http://www.antifrost.gr
Address: http://www.grannyrecords.org
BJ NILSEN & STILLUPPSTEYPA/ANLA COURTIS – GOLDEN CIRCLE AFTERNOON (LP by Editions Mego)
SIGTRYGGUR BERG SIGMARSSSON & TOM SMITH – BREATH TO FALSE SINOGRIME (cassette by Belgian Home Optimisation)
In recent months we had quite a few releases by Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, one half of Stilluppsteypa. It seems that whenever Sigmarsson is together with Helgi Thorsson, the other half, BJ Nilsen is also present and they record their music. It’s no longer one of those one-off things as by now they have a considerable discography together, and at discogs they have a listing as BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa. For their latest record they also have Argentinian guitarist Anla Courtis (once of Reynols fame and a former collaborator with Nilsen on the Brombron project – it’s a small world) on board, and the cover indicates that the record was recorded in Berlin, Reykjavik and Buenos Aires, so presumably collaboration through mail. I don’t think that’s the reason why this new record has a slightly different sound than before. Whereas in the past drones played an all-important role to create dense and beautiful soundscapes, the improvised guitar of Courtis has quite a distinguished role. Obviously this doesn’t mean that the drones are entirely wiped out here. The heavily processed field recordings – towards the end of ‘Aurora Australis’ to be recognized as sea sounds – mingling with organ sounds, lots of electronics make up yet another intense record of musique concrete meeting with drones and this time also guitar sounds. Another new feature, which they do on each side of the record, is at the beginning to create a quick build up, towards a crescendo and cut out and start again. It’s a collage like technique that I didn’t hear them doing before, or perhaps not a lot. It works quite well and it’s perhaps something they should consider doing more often inside the space of a piece. Of the two sidelong pieces I preferred ‘Fish Is God’ best, with a beautiful ending of a dark ambient nature slowly converting into rattling percussion. Great record.
Of a more experimental nature is the cassette by Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson recorded with Tom Smith, formerly of To Live And Shave In L.A. Here he plays synthesizer and live mix, while Sigmarsson gets credit for voice and treatments. In a way it’s along the lines of Sigmarsson’s earlier cassette release ‘I Say To You’, which was reviewed in Vital Weekly 939. The two pieces here are cut from a concert earlier this year and it’s a bit more noise based than Sigmarsson’s solo sound poetry efforts, with especially on the second side some nasty frequencies emerging from the synthesizer of Smith. Here the voice seems to have vanished from the music, but perhaps this is just due to the extended treatments of it. I quite enjoyed this release (although witnessing the concert would have maybe been even nicer) for it’s crude synthesizer sounds, and Sigmarsson’s voice stuff. Now that’s what I call sound poetry! (FdW)
Address: http://editionsmego.com/
$.99 DREAMS – SPEI RES (LP by Draft Records)
While I knew I left the previous releases of $.99 Dreams with Dolf Mulder, I decided to listen in and see what this LP was about. It seemed to be a move from the earlier, perhaps somewhat naive CDR and download releases, and maybe it was good to check what they are up to now. I somehow associated this with jazz music, and maybe to a certain extent it actually is jazz based, the duo of Adam Diller (synth, sax, production) and Matt Crane (drums), might as easily be called electronic music with hip hop influences. Maybe even Silver Apples less any vocals, or Suicide with real drums, maybe Sogar & Swing (from the Hapna label, if you remember them) – but perhaps I was thinking ‘duos’ here. The jazz element didn’t seem very present here but it had a very nice, rough presence this music, with occasionally just stomping around and occasionally they play a great melody, such as in ‘Fiducia’ or the arpeggios in ‘Lacus Exitium’. I really enjoyed their very upfront sound, almost like a live recording, with a big fat bass synth sound and a highly unprocessed drum kit, ornamented by other less crude, spacy synth sounds. This LP clocks in at thirty-two minutes and has eleven relatively short pieces, some of which seems even sketch like, but those add to the flavour of this record. In a way this sounded all very retro, very 80s like, and with the cover being a black & white silkscreened affair, I am totally sold. Great band with a great release. (FdW)
Address: http://draftrecords.com
SLEEP GUNNER – PLAYS THE LOUVIN BROTHERS SONGBOOK VOL. 1 (LP by The Butcher’s Voice)
Perhaps I am excused, but I never heard of The Louvin Brothers, but wiki helps me out: “The Louvin Brothers were an American country music duo composed of brothers Ira Lonnie Loudermilk (1924–1965) and Charlie Elzer Loudermilk (1927–2011), better known as Ira and Charlie Louvin. They helped popularize close harmony, a genre of country music.” Sleep Gunner is a duo from Amsterdam, Mark Morse and Jeroen Kimman, both guitar, whole they also play banjo, pedal steel, vocoder synth, vocoder guitar and Morten J. Olsen plays drums on one song; his name and that of Jeff Carey, responsible for the mastering, were the ones I recognized, and maybe I got this by either one’s recommendation. I read Sleep Gunner is ‘no attempt to be truly authentic in any of these styles’, i.e. bluesgrass, gospel or early country music. Much like some other music sometimes presented in these pages I have no idea what to make of this. I actually the crazy country music here, especially since it’s instrumental, but it’s hard for me to make out if this a tribute, a parody or in any way an attempt to renew that kind of music. It’s music with some excellent speed, some tear-jerking emotion, great slide moves and such like, and this is surely the odd ball of this week’s issue. I played this with great interest and like it al lot; now I wish I could say something sensible about it. I can’t. (FdW)
Address: http://sleepgunner.blogspot.com
THOMAS DIMUZIO – AMID ZERO ECHO (double 10″ by Substantia Innominata)
While I was listening to this double 10″ record, I was thinking that Thomas Dimuzio has a very distinct sound, although I would not go as far as to say that I could pick him blind in a contest. The four pieces on this record are what we know from Dimuzio and what we love; at least that’s what I do. It’s never easy to know what Dimuzio is doing, and perhaps I have some romantic notion about it: take a teeny tiny fragment of sound and capture that is an endless range of sound effects, samplers, oscillators and filters and what else he got down in his studio. The cover says ‘guitar and processing’, so there you go: what do I know. Like so many others he knows how to manipulate the guitar beyond – light-years beyond actually – the sound of the guitar and it sounds like this dark, slow moving landmass; Drone Records, who are behind this series, calls him a sonic alchemist, and that term is perhaps over-used, but maybe not in this case, I think. Dimuzio creates the kind of drones that many dream of and few can actually do: that of a constant swirl up, down and side ways spin, always moving and changing, never in state of standstill. It’s music that could as easily work for as a soundtrack for a film, but is best enjoyed on it’s own, in a barely lit room at night and at a louder volume: only then, I would think, the true beauty will be fully uncovered. Music as a total immersion event. The only downside is you have to get and change the record a few times; on the bright side, you have four pieces and the choice to release this as a double 10″ is a great one. One day on CD, perhaps, please? (FdW)
Address: http://www.dronerecords.de
ROVAR17 – CHARLIE FOXTROT (CDR by Unsigned Label)
NOJZERR – TIMEWIND (CDR by Unsigned Label)
HAVIZAJ EXPERIMENTAL NOISE COMPILATION #1 (CDR by Unsigned Label)
Of these three releases on Hungary’s Unsigned Label, I started out with the release by Rovar17, simply because it had a digipack and thus looked better than the other two, which had plain simple Xeroxed covers. All of these contained names I didn’t encounter before. Rovar17 recorded their three pieces in the United States as part of their ‘Hungarian Attack Tour’ in 2010, and I would think each piece is an edit of recordings they made. There is no indication here as to which equipment Rovar17 is using, but judging by the music I would think there is a bunch of electronics at play here, mainly sound effects and some sort of sound stimuli to get these effects going. At KDVS Radio Davis this was all pretty noise based, but in ‘Noise Pancakes’ (recorded at The Lab in San Francisco), the longest piece here, they (?) play a more ambient industrial card. Still pretty noisy, but with a deeper backdrop and a better-defined sound. It basically revolves around a bunch of loops, going into the effects control in various configurations. In ‘Stlouse’ Rovar17 reaches it softest point with a fine drone, radio voices and transformed bell sounds, working their way up to a nice crescendo.
Nojzerr has five songs/pieces, ‘recorded at Nu Note Records’ and apparently this is an ‘unmixed edition’. Here too information seems rather low and I would think this has to do with the world of industrial music, coming to us via those new small synthesizers (monotrons perhaps) and rhythm machines (monotribes), all feeding into a bunch of stompboxes. Nojzerr uses also vocals, or vocal samples of some kind, so it sometimes has this vaguely ritual feel, such as in ‘Pray’, but that seems to be one of the few cases here. The music has something freakish: let’s turn a few machines and see what happens if we jam around. That or perhaps this is indeed ‘unmixed’. It’s of course a matter of opinion and aesthetic to choice which working methods one suits best, but maybe there is a listener to consider? It means that, at least for me, it’s not easy to enter these somewhat distant noisescapes and get fully immersed by them. It’s a bit uneasy music, which in itself should be no problem, but its also somehow unfinished business.
And finally a compilation of noise music from such acts as Animal Machine (from ‘Polland’ as the covers says; is that Poland or Holland?), Rovar17, B*Tong, Tamagawa, Jackie Triste, Sikhara and Buben. It opens loudly with Animal Machine: noise following radio broadcasts about Blackwater – the private army – and it’s all very much Consumer Electronics. Other tracks are, however, less loud than this, luckily enough. Buben and B*Tong open up the doors of a more drone/ambient sound and Sikhara has a curious short ditty. It’s an oke compilation, but then what, I thought? (FdW)
Address: https://www.facebook.com/UnsignedLabel
PARALLAX TAPELOOP – TROIS BALADES (cassette by Tanuki Records)
VOICEOVER – NERVOUS BREAKTHROUGH (cassette by Tanuki Records)
SHELBY BRYANT’S WURSTMUZIK (cassette by Tanuki Records)
Three new tapes on Tanuki Records from Brussels. I started out with the one that said ‘Trois Balades’ on the tape and nothing much else. There is no information on the cover at all, but according to the information that came along it’s by Parallax Tapeloop, a duo of Argil and Loic Joseph and the music was created for an exhibition of paintings. You could think ‘Trois Balades’ has three tracks/songs, but it’s in fact only one piece of ten minutes. Ten highly vaguely minimal minutes of looped sounds, spoken words, audience talking and all such like, but it surely has something fascinating this. Maybe a bit short altogether, but perhaps that added that overall vagueness of this.
It’s been a while since I last heard the name Institut Fuer Feinmotorik being mentioned, but here Marc Matter, one of the members of that combo of turntablists (and also a member of The Durian Brothers), works as Voiceover, and presents two pieces of music ‘Nervous’ and ‘Breakthrough’, on a C25 cassette. He uses voice, turntables and effects in some incredibly strange music. Here too the main instrument seems to be looped material, but the speed keeps changing it seems, constantly so we are in a free fall of sounds. Despite whatever electronics were used, it all sounds quite acoustic, certainly on ‘Nervous’, which has indeed some unnerving hectic play at work. ‘Breakthrough’, with it’s slowed down sounds, has a more peaceful character.
The closest we get to the world of pop music is with Shelby Bryant’s Wurstmuzik. He released two albums of Smells Like Records some time ago, but I never heard them. This is pop music of the charming lo-fi kind and the one that uses a lot of small keyboards, synths, vocoder vocals and rhythm machines. My point of reference – you have different ones, I know – would be the work of Bertin and his Visitors project; Shelby Bryant seems less concerned with aliens and robots but more in a pure pop song, sometimes taking chords from a very well-known pop song and reworks that into something of his own. Sometimes it sounds like a band playing and has the charming ramshackle of a lo-fi garage band (TV Personalities or something like that). A very entertaining tape this one and you won’t be bored a single minute: this is like listening to a great alternative radio station. (FdW)
Address: http://tanukirecords.bandcamp.com/
ANTOINE PANACHE – DESPERATE ATTEMPTS AT FINGER-LICKING BEAUTY (cassette by Barreuh Records)
ANTOINE PANACHE – 60 SECONDS MAN (cassette by Barreuh Records)
Along with this cassette I got a long handwritten letter and another cassette on ‘loan’. Antoine Panache writes me that on this loan cassette I will find the limited edition part of that tape, which was limited to 10 copies only, while the official edition of the total thing was twenty copies. Antoine Panache – not her real name – poses as a man, as noise is for and by boys perhaps, and is in her own right also a performer with various people such as the Ongemotiveerd Kunstenaars Collectief. In this noise a few things play a role; it’s not really your over the top noise to start with, the voice plays an important role and much of it uses discarded or half broken equipment, or even something as alien as a typewriter. I started with the official debut (already from a few months back), which was twenty minutes of interesting noise music. Never really loud or feedback like, but experimental with a rough edge. The music on the limited edition cassette version is a bit louder and perhaps a bit noisier, but it works again quite well. If the more obscure and austere forms of noise are up your alley, then I am sure you will like the work of Antoine Panache.
The other cassette is a C2 in an edition of 5 copies only and has two pieces of a minute each. These were recorded for a local Nijmegen project of sounds in oil drums (and I believe a CDR will be released by Oggy Records soon). ‘Avonturen In De Ooijpolder’ has a voice sample about that area and a strong, minimal pulse, not unlike Pan Sonic or Goem. ‘Solo Miauw’ is a myriad of loops of solo mio taking from the lunapark roller coaster and has a distinct ancient feel to it, I was thinking. Nice but way too short! (FdW)
Address: http://barreuhrecords.bandcamp.com
Address: http://barreuhrecords.bandcamp.com/album/60-seconds-man
LEITMOTIV LIMBO – LIMBO/WIND SWEPT (cassette, private)
The cover lists the fifteen song titles, and says that one side is called ‘Limbo’ and the other is ‘Wind Swept’ and the band name; that’s it. A look on the Facebook page shows the same image as the cassette cover, so I am looking at the right band. For it seems to me a band rather than a single person doing this, even when I am not entirely sure why I assume this. There is electronics in the form of a modular synthesizer, rhythm machines, saxophones and guitars. Right from the start this has something retro. Recorded in a garage somewhere with a microphone, direct to tape, which results in a direct sound recording but with a band playing some crude of the more experimental side of post-punk and no vocals. Stuff like this you had on end in the 80s; in the Netherlands for instance on the Limbabwe label. Some of the saxophone bits reminded me of Last Few Days while it uses also some cruder tape-experiments here and there. I quite enjoyed this whole obscurity thing and thought it might easily go under again and re-surface years from now and will have a second life on whatever file sharing we use then in blogosphere 10.0. Until then you can contact the band through Facebook and offer them a tape of your own making in exchange.
Address: https://www.facebook.com/LeitmotivLimbo