GIL SANSON & BRUNO DUPLANT – BLANK (CD by Mystery Sea) *
THIBAULT JEHANNE – ESKIFJOROUR (CD by Kaon) *
GIULIO ALDINUCCI – AER (CD by Dronarivm) *
MARTIN BRESNICK – PRAYERS REMAIN FOREVER (CD by Starkland) *
VALERIO COSI – PLAYS POPOL VUH (LP by Dreamsheep)
NADINE BYRNE – A DIFFERENT GESTURE (LP by Ideal Recordings)
SPARKLE IN GREY – THE CALENDER (CD and booklet by Lizard Records, Under My Bed, Old Bicycle and Moving Records & Comics)
ANDERS BRØRBY – NOCTURNAL PHASES (CDR by Feral Delight) *
SMITTEN – CHEMIEFASERWERK (3″CDR by Sart Label) *
18QM – NONTRON (cassette, private)
18QM – LE GRAU (cassette, private)
IMF – THE REALNESS (cassette, private)
ANNE LAPLATINE – SELECTED INTERNET (cassette by Powdered Hearts Records)
SACK UND SHEFFIELD (cassette by Powdered Hearts Records)
ADEODAT WARFIELD – CAR JAMS ’14 (cassette by Powdered Hearts Records)
KORDIK & LUCAS – BRUSHED AND CRUSHED (cassette by Earshots)
VM – ROGGE (download by Blowpipe)
GIL SANSON & BRUNO DUPLANT – BLANK (CD by Mystery Sea)
In terms of expectance, this is certainly one of the stranger releases on Mystery Sea in some time. Many of the releases on this label have some connection with ‘sea’, ‘water’, ‘rivers’ and such like, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Although Bruno Duplant may use, perhaps, field recordings of the watery kind in this work, it all seems to be more the work of improvisation music on real instruments. Duplant plays horn, double bass and electronics and Gil Sanson (did I ever hear from him?) plays electric guitar and amplifier, broken mandolin, empty maraca and ‘phonographies’. He also wrote the score for the first and the last piece, and Duplant for the one in the middle. So, instead of having improvised music, this is composed music, which just happen to sound like improvised music. Three pieces, as said, and they are all around twenty-two minutes, and they deal with a lot of quiet sounds. A plink here, a plonk there, all carefully played, quiet and spacious. There is a bit of bird sounds, large chunks of unidentified field recordings rumble play an important role. I think (!) I like it, but I am not too sure: I do know that it’s all a bit long. I think I would have been equally satisfied with two of these pieces instead of three. Maybe I just lack the right amount of concentration today? Maybe I think it’s a bit too much of the same thing? Mystery Sea makes a daring move, however, with this release, making it different from the ones we already know. (FdW)
Address: http://www.mysterysea.net
THIBAULT JEHANNE – ESKIFJOROUR (CD by Kaon)
Only twenty-five is Thibault Jehanne, but he has made some installation pieces and film soundtracks and one of these is now released: “Eskifjörður, is an Icelandic town settled along the East fjords, still between two lively environments”, I read on the website and it is a film without images (if I understood this well). Jehanne is a field recordist but one that may add a few tricks, such as sound manipulation, collage techniques and such like. The sounds are all from Iceland’s more rough natural landscapes, and water bursts and burps around here. It’s hard to tell if Jehanne uses any electronics or not, but in ‘Le Naufrage’ it seems so; that, or he uses so many field recordings together that it gathers this heavy drone like sound, like a cluster of organ tones being played. I am reminded here of some of the early The Hafler Trio (circa ‘Brain Song’) here, but throughout the use of the field recordings prevails here, it seems, and Jehanne puts them together in a very clever way. It’s music that is full of tension and attention for the details and by using collage like techniques he builds some excellent music, with a fine ear for subtle changes and rapid change-overs. It’s especially that mixture between the pure field recordings, the rumble of nature as it were, which works well in combination with those thicker washes of sound – either the pure untreated sounds but then heavily layered together or via some kind of electronic manipulation. Whatever it is, it’s not really important to know this. What counts is that this is a more than excellent release. A great new discovery in the area of field recorders with a strong voice of it’s own. (FdW)
Address: http://www.kaon.org
GIULIO ALDINUCCI – AER (CD by Dronarivm)
Here’s a new name for me on a by now familiar home for all things drone like: Giulio Aldinucci, born in 1981 in Siena, Italy. Before he worked also as Obsil (of whom we reviewed music in Vital Weekly 702 and 776) and I am not sure if releasing under his own marks a difference with Obsil. Aldinucci himself says that he is working in ‘the field of electroacoustic music. My musical research always focuses on different synthesis techniques and on the use of field recordings’. Indeed field recordings do seem to play an important role in these seven compositions. These field recordings are treated by computer means – it’s electroacoustic music after all – and it sounds mostly warm and not so glitchy. It may be along the lines of Fennesz in his more ambient moods, or label mate Porya Hatami – or countless others in this crowded field of field recording benders. Sometimes I think Aldinucci is a bit too light weighted in his work and leans dangerously towards the world of new age, such as in ‘Fieno’. But in a piece like ‘Lampara’ his notes are a bit too dark and too moody to fall in that new age gap and he stays on the right side of things. Lots of ‘rain on objects’ sounds are used here, along with long sustaining computer processed drone music. The most ‘different’ piece is ‘1001011011×2’, which sounds like reel-to-reel recorders speeding up tapes while using the recorder heads and has fine collage feel to it. Now, I’d say, a bit more of this mixed with those more drone-based excursions and it brings some spice and variation to the table, more of Aldinucci’s own voice into the music. It could be indeed ‘Sleep With Noise’, as one of these pieces is called. Not a bad album as it’s well produced, well crafted and perhaps just needs to be a bit more of it’s own. (FdW)
Address: http://dronarivm.com
MARTIN BRESNICK – PRAYERS REMAIN FOREVER (CD by Starkland)
Starkland’s list of artists that they released includes Merzbow, but he’s surely an odd ball with the likes of Lois V Vierk, Pamela Z or Ingram Marshall, to mention three others. Starkland is primarily a label for ‘new music’ and ‘new’ is to be understood as ‘new, modern classical’ music. They often release work from well-known composers, but not necessarily known to me; which is of course no problem: we love to learn. Here’s its Martin Bresnick who composes for instruments and electronics/computer alike, and on this album he has five pieces of chamber music. It opens with ‘Going Home – Vysoke, My Jerusalem’, which is the biggest ensemble, two oboes, violin, viola and cello. Other pieces are for fewer players, usually one or two, and an equal amount of instruments. As you hopefully know, my knowledge of modern classical music is rather limited, so I can merely tell you what I hear and if I like what I hear, which in the this first case I am afraid is not really the case, but the piano piece that follows, ‘Ishi’s Song’, it’s an excellent piece, partly minimal but slowly breaking down in a highly reflective mood. ‘Strange Devotion’, also solo piano, is on the other hand more conventional classical music (to these untrained ears, he hastened to add). Two pieces use voice to some extent or another, of which ‘Josephine The Singer’, the one is with more introspective playing and ‘sprechstimme’ at the beginning and it reminded me of Arvo Part. In ‘A Message From The Emperor’ there is percussion from two players on Vibraphone and Marimba, and reciting texts from Franz Kafka. It works quite well and it’s a fine piece. The final piece is for cello and piano and shows another reflective side of Bresnick and marks the end of a wonderful interesting modern classical release. Even for perhaps mildly interested people in the whole genre of modern classical music this could be a most interesting release for a change. (FdW)
Address: http://starkland.com
VALERIO COSI – PLAYS POPOL VUH (LP by Dreamsheep)
Cosi originates from Taranto, Italy. He is saxophone player, but multi-instrumentalist as well. He started somewhere in the first decade of 2000. He has numerous records out and is a known musician in the Italian underground scene. It is hard to pinpoint his music – and in fact there is no need to – but influences of jazz, rock, krautrock and electronics can be identified. Cosi is above all a free spirit drawing his own line. Popol Vuh has been an influence already for a long time. In 2007 Cosi released a CDR called ‘A Sacred Hommage of Florian Fricke’, a collaboration with Enzo Franchini. With his new release Cosi again links to Popol Vuh, and in an original way. The title of the album states clearly what Cosi is doing. However he is not covering Popol Vuh tunes. He is not using Popol Vuh purely as material to construct his own compositions that have no further reference to Popol Vuh. No Cosi moves somewhere in between. He tried to capture the spirit of the pieces, but changed the structure of the pieces, and also the instrumentation is different. The titles on the album refer to existing pieces by Popol Vuh of the same name. So understandingly one listens with the original Popol Vuh tune in mind. Resemblances are most obvious in ‘Train through time‘ where Cosi uses a sample from the original piece. In ‘Hosianna Mantra’ the melody-line of the original piece is sung at one instance, embedded however in a totally different context as in the original. ‘Vuh’ is like the original a drone like kind of piece, starting with layers of saxophone. , ‘Affenstunde’ starts for some reason with an alarm: Alarmansage für das Bundesland Schleswig-Holstein. For ‘Aguirre’ and ‘Train through Time’ Cosi also produced two videos that can be viewed at youtube. Cosi recorded everything at his home studio in 2013, with guest appearances of Paul de Jong of The Books on cello and samples, Zac Nelson on drums and Mauro Corvaglia on electric guitar. Coming to his music, and leaving all comparisons behind, he builds dynamic structures that have drive and power, no matter of its more close to rock, jazz, or ambient drones. An original voice. (DM)
Address: http://www.dreamsheep.bigcartel.com/
NADINE BYRNE – A DIFFERENT GESTURE (LP by Ideal Recordings)
The name Nadine Byrne didn’t ring a bell, and seeing she was born in 1985 in Stockholm makes me belief she’s not related to David Byrne. She studied art in Stockholm and Bergen (Norway) and Western Esotericism in Stockholm. I might be entirely wrong of course, but I believe she is more active in the world of art and film making than in doing music, but on the other hand she does her own soundtracks. I played these four soundtracks a couple of times, but not always registered what I was hearing, sometimes because I was distracted a couple of times; I knew I liked what I heard, especially on the B-side of this record. The longest piece is on the A-side and is ‘Dream Family’ which is also a great piece, but due to the fact that much of this piece is very quiet and indeed dream-like in nature, based on just a few loops of what could be a violin or an organ like sound, floating in free space, makes this not something to be heard just casually. A loop of a voice humming is also be found in here and makes up some very nice, introspective piece of music, slowly building up until it lands in a less dreamy, quick cascading wave pattern. The other pieces are less quiet. ‘And The Sky Is So Present And Near’ is a solo piano piece, spread out over a few simultaneous layers. ‘Topografi’ is a piece of multi-layered guitar sounds, a bit hectic perhaps, but the overall nature of this piece is still quite ambient. ‘How Pure Is The Journey’ is the most drone like piece, with shifting organ sounds. These two pieces were all to brief for my taste and could have easily lasted a bit longer. Even without looking at the films that are at the foundation of this, I think this, in strict musical terms a great release. (FdW)
Address: http://www.idealrecordings.com
SPARKLE IN GREY – THE CALENDER (CD and booklet by Lizard Records, Under My Bed, Old Bicycle and Moving Records & Comics)
Sparkle in Grey from Italy returns to it’s roots, after some experimental albums in the last years and the blast of the last album “Thursday.” The CD starts with a quiet electronica piece with a meditative rhythm and returned sounds. A nice beginning of the year. February starts and ends with some field-recordings of walking in the snow and flows into a neo-folk song with acoustic instruments combined with field-recordings. March starts like a fresh spring-song and continues in a open melodic composition which will be fine as a companion for a dance. The following songs are in the same mood, although the tracks are more melancholic and slower. Quintilis (July) is a break in the album, the folk dance has disappeared and the mix between folk, pop – and experimental music melts together. After this break the album continues with beautiful folky songs combined with field-recordings. The album has a timeless atmosphere, although the November track is like an old hippy song created by Pink Floyd for the movie “More.” December is a beautiful atmospheric piece of music with open tones played by ukulele and glockenspiel. A clarinet and an electronic bass create the melancholic base. The year has been closed and a new period has started with an unmentioned track. It is a beautiful composition played by violin, acoustic guitar, electronic bass and voice and a lot of echo aka delay. Will this be start for a new album in which acoustic instruments; experiment and electronics will meet each other?? (JKH)
Address: http://www.sparkleingrey.com/
ANDERS BRØRBY – NOCTURNAL PHASES (CDR by Feral Delight)
The previous (and debut) release by Anders Brørby was reviewed by PJN in Vital Weekly 944, even when I played a bit of it. It sounded, with all respect, a bit gothic for my taste. In the last two years Brørby (also?) worked on ‘Nocturnal Phases’, which he describes as the ‘last record of this kind, as I’m working on more experimental stuff these days’. I am curious to hear what that would bring as ‘Nocturnal Phases’ is indeed very pop. Too pop for these pages, perhaps? While it is known that we sometimes go out to the pop land and see what’s there, for a critical inspection, we don’t regard it as our particular strong field of interest. Brørby sings, plays electronics (keyboards, rhythm machines) and guitar and offers eleven of his rock inspired pop songs. Not as electro-goth avant-garde pieces of DHG’s 666 International and a glitched up John Foxx, in the words of PJN on the debut album, but more mainstream rock I would think. Do I know any other bands like this? I only vaguely (and admit to be proud of that) know bands like Muse or Coldplay and whatever else is out there – or hey, as Itunes calls this ‘dance & house’ why not Avicci, and surely Brørby is not (all) like that, but there is a bombastic flair to this music that makes I quite enjoyed this – but perhaps it was due to the fact that only this morning I was reading ‘Queen – The Complete Guide To Their Music’ whilst playing their albums in chronological order, that I am more receptive for this kind of bombast? Lots of reverb on the voice, massive beats from those machines and those loud guitars. I enjoyed this while it lasted, and by the time I finished the Queen book, and have given it away, I may not care about them either. However, however! I’d love to hear whatever else mister Anders Brørby comes up: his definition of ‘more experimental stuff’. (FdW)
Address: http://andersbrorby.bandcamp.com
SMITTEN – CHEMIEFASERWERK (3″CDR by Sart Label)
18QM – NONTRON (cassette, private)
18QM – LE GRAU (cassette, private)
One Christian from Marseille used to call himself Smitten before settling upon 18QM – which is the size of his room in which he does all of his recordings? The two cassettes under that moniker are both without much information, but there is some more on the 3″CDR. Assuming here there is not a lot of difference between Smitten and 18QM, and it says that it uses tape machines, analogue synthesizer, amplified guitar, processed field recordings and a four track cassette recorder. Here we enter the world of drone music, of the more ‘heavy’ variation, especially in ‘1811132’, which ends on a curious note of drum sounds. The other two pieces show a milder variation of drone music, perhaps relying more on analogue synthesizer sounds. Especially ‘1811133’, the longest of the three pieces here worked really well. Hiss-heavy from all the tape saturation, with a nice shimmering, repeating drone like melody moving in and out of the mix, ending on a collage of synth sounds and noise. It’s a pity that this is all quite short.
The two cassettes are bit longer, perhaps thirty minutes each. ‘Nontron’ seems to take over from the last piece on the 3″CDR, with some very nice drone like sound material of a quite light nature, especially on the first side. The other side has more pieces, maybe two or three (never easy to count) of more drone sounds, which I would think all find their origin in playing analogue synthesizers. They are played together and form on the B-side more of a menacing drones, forceful but pleasantly present. I think this is a great tape.
The most obscure release of these three is ‘Le Grau’. Here we don’t find as many lovely drones as on the other two, because it has a rather vague sound. A bit of rumbling of percussion – tea cups on a saucer perhaps – and some sound events which are barely there at all, even when turning up the volume quite a bit. Only on the second side there is a bit of drone like guitar sounds, which is more audible than the rest of the music on this tape. While this sounded all not too bad, I preferred the other tape to this one. ‘Le Grau’ seemed to me a bit too conceptual and less defined and refined in a musical sense.
I would strongly suggest seriously improving on the packaging and making it look better and more informative: that would bring more interest in the music that deserves to be heard by a bigger audience. (FdW)
Address: http://18qm.tumblr.com/
IMF – THE REALNESS (cassette, private)
This acronym stands Ian M Fraser, who writes that he doesn’t do ‘conceptual garbage, no MIDI bullshit!’ (His exclamation mark), ‘Just hard hitting, non-linear equation synthesis heavy algorithmic noise’ and that’s no lie. The music was recorded throughout 2013, in concert as well as in studio surroundings and I assume he cut ‘n paste these recordings together in this twenty minute noise onslaught. There is a movement of noise creators who work with computers but who do not rely on just an endless wall of distorted sounds, but in stead have something that jumps and bounces all over the place, left to right in the speaker, with odd jump cuts at even odder places. And yes, sometimes this is really annoyingly (and pleasantly loud), but it never stays long in a single place, not even in the same dynamic place, as it goes from very low to very high end here. I quite enjoyed this release, perhaps due to its briefness. Longer would perhaps not work as well, and shorter would be… just too short. Now we have a twenty-minute solid impression. If you like Hecker or Karkowski, then you might want to check IMF out also. (FdW)
Address: http://ianmfraser.bandcamp.com
ANNE LAPLATINE – SELECTED INTERNET (cassette by Powdered Hearts Records)
SACK UND SHEFFIELD (cassette by Powdered Hearts Records)
ADEODAT WARFIELD – CAR JAMS ’14 (cassette by Powdered Hearts Records)
Of these three releases on Powdered Hearts Records, the one by Anne Laplatine might be sold out from the source, but maybe you can find it somewhere? It’s such a nice tape, that it needs to be mentioned. First of all, the sheer length of this tape: ninety two minutes of music, and each side is presented as one piece, but in fact it’s broken down into many small pieces. Maybe the title is a nod towards Aphex Twin ‘Selected Ambient Works’? All of these pieces are a bit pop like, mostly instrumental, a bit techno, and much lo-fi with tinkling on keyboards. None of the tracks-inside-the-big-track- seems to be using up two or three minutes, and it’s making sense as a whole, not as separate pieces. It’s the naive, childlike vision on music, presented in a ninety-minute stream of little bits of melodies (lots of bits actually) and it has a fine sad/madness. Maybe the label should consider selling MP3s of this?
Labelboss Jon Sheffield teams up with Harald “Sack” Ziegler in a short, twenty-minute tape. Sheffield is from Columbia, Missouri, and has a had an album on Tomlab and works(ed) with groups as Deep Water Man, Billy Schuh And The Foundry and he C3 Psychoto-Electro Arkestra. I am not sure if I heard his work before. Mister Sack we of course know for many years as one of the most important people to play wacky, childlike popmusic. Lo-fi popmusic to be precise, with a nice experimental edge to it, but it is always playing a song and not a ‘piece’, if you get my drift. Together they worked, I assume, through the strength of e-mail, bouncing back and forth melodies, bits of a song, both of them singing, guitar sounds, a French horn – trademark of any good Sack song I should think – and a bit of computer stuff, courtesy of Sheffield. Lovely, intimate stuff going on here. Bittersweet small melodies; if only pop music was always like this, I’d be buying too.
Also perhaps sold out, but surely still around as a download, is the EP by Adeodat Warfield, nom de plume of Ryan Sublette, of whom I never heard before. Here too we find something that is pop-like, but more conventional, perhaps, than the Sack Und Sheffield release. Sublette plays keyboards, adds a bit of rhythm and sings. The structure of his songs may be the only thing that is perhaps less ordinary. He’s a bit of loose on the organisation of his four songs. He adds quite some reverb and delay to his voice, and that makes it all a bit too similar. But the whole thing – well, c14 (!), perhaps doesn’t count as a whole thing – has a fine charming lo-fi bedroom singer-song writer quality to it. Also heavily on the ambient and introspective side, so surely appealing to a few people who are keen to discover something new. (FdW)
Address: http://powderedheartsrecords.bandcamp.com
Address: https://adeodatwarfieldx.bandcamp.com/album/car-jams-14
KORDIK & LUCAS – BRUSHED AND CRUSHED (cassette by Earshots)
From London (at least: as far as I could tell), a duo of which I hadn’t heard before: Edward Lucas on trombone and Daniel Kordik on synthesizer. They have a release on a label that is likewise new to me, Earshots Recordings. On this forty-minute cassette we find five pieces of die-hard improvisation. Not of the most careful kind, but all quite direct and in your face. The synthesizer plays strange figures, all highly abstract and not using any kind of pre-set sounds, probably some kind of modular system, while the trombone sounds like a trombone, which makes the two of them together actually quite an odd combination. It’s a kind of improvisation noise; not of the kind that is all very loud and distorted but just by the sheer kind of playing their instruments: seemingly in a more or less uncontrolled manner, maybe like these have been played for the time by these players. Maybe in a kind of naive way, but no doubt this is all like an elaborate trick by these players. Not to show ‘how easy’ this is, but to create some music which makes you want to sit uptight and listen closely to the beauty of the beast that sometimes is the world of improvisational music. Not an easy listening experience, but a most rewarding one. (FdW)
Address: http://recordings.earshots.org
VM – ROGGE (download by Blowpipe)
While I almost completed this review I noticed that it was a download only release; damn! It is such a lovely release. Blowpipe from The Netherlands releases a lot of left field pop-related stuff, but the recent release by Heartsnatcher also showed us they are interested in more experimental stuff and VM goes even a bit further. Floris van Manen recorded Smalts in the 80s, and Smalts being Minny Pops with a singer are also responsible for the Blowpipe label. Van Manen also works as VM, apparently, and has had already two previous download only and ‘Rogge’ (which is ‘Rye’) is an almost thirty minute sound scape piece of a machine like sound, like a washing machine slowed down in tempo and with the mechanics of the machine amplified in various places; it has a curious industrial music feeling this piece. Very minimal perhaps but it doesn’t seem to stay in the same place very long, if actually it does at all. Maybe it is in a permanent state of change? Like an endless flux of sounds being manipulated constantly? It is however not of the machine like kind of say good ol’ Vivenza or noisy in the sense sense of harsh noise walls. Equally it’s not the studious sonology music; it is more ambient by nature than industrial, but without any soft undercurrent. It’s the most experimental piece of music on Blowpipe that I heard so far and it’s a pity that it’s not available on a CDR! (FdW)
Address: http://www.blowpipe.org/vm.html