Week 50

TREMBLE WITH JOY – BORN TREMBLING (CD by False Walls) *
FRANCESCO GAINNICO & ANACLETO VITOLO – THERE IS NO LONGER ANY TURNING BACK (CD by 13/Silentes) *
CORPS ET BIENS – MOUTH WIND (CD by Creative Sources Recordings) *
THEA FARHADIAN – TATTOOS AND OTHER MARKINGS (CD by Other Minds) *
GIANCARLO TONIUTTI & DEISON & MASSIMO TONIUTTI – DUE SCRITTI IMPERFETTI (CD by 13) *
MASKHEAD – PASSION BRUISES (CD by 999 Cuts) *
INGEBRIGT HÅKER FLATEN (EXIT) KNARR – BREEZY (CD, private) *
BLEAK END – SUNT LACRIMAE RERUM: A COMPLETE DISCOGRAPHY (3″CD by No Sides Records) *
ALEXEY SHMURAK & OLEH SHPUDEIKO – LIEBESTOD (LP by Kyiv Dispatch) *
RED BRUT – ON BARE GROUND (LP by Dead Mind Records/Econore/Coherent States) *
TAÂLEM ADVENT CALENDAR 2024 PART 2
04: MAURIZIO BIANCHI – SHREDS (3″ CDR by Taalem) *
05: FLAVIEN GILLIÉ – MES YEUX FATIGUENT VITE (3″ CDR by Taalem) *
06: LECANORA – RUST (3″ CDR by Taalem) *
07: DESACCORD MAJEUR – LES JUGEMENTS DE GOUT (3″ CDR by Taalem) *
08: MODELBAU – MECHANICAL SHADOWS OF THE FADING LIGHT (3″ CDR by Taalem) *
09: JOHN GRZINICH – WEATHERING INSIDE (3″ CDR by Taalem) *
10: I-WOUND – THIS IS NOT THE PRESENT (3″ CDR by Taalem) *
SOFTENON BABE – DE MORTE PER CIBORUM (3″ CDR by 999 Cuts)*
SAVVAS METAXAS – FOLK TALES AND THE RAIN (cassette by Wabi Sabi) *
SILVER ABUSE – RUFF KUTZ 2012-2014 (cassette by No Sides Records)n*
V.C.O.B.T. – GUILT TRIP (cassette by 999 Cuts) *

TREMBLE WITH JOY – BORN TREMBLING (CD by False Walls)

It’s easy to admit that Cindytalk escaped my attention in the 1980s. I was buried deep in the world of cassettes. I heard Cindytalk’s set of albums of Editions Mego after the turn of the century and found them all pretty decent, but in terms of laptop music, there is nothing new under the sun. Then it went quiet again, at least from perspective, but now Cinder teams up with Mkl Anderson, who we otherwise know as Drekka, Mark Trecka, and Michael Carlson (remst8). They already had an album in 2022, ‘Subterminal’, for the same label, which escaped my attention. The label says this project is a bit like “an exquisite corpse”, someone starting something, other people adding. In this case, Trecka started, with experiments on a piano, passed on to Drekka using it during a six-hour live recording in an abbey in Ghent (Belgium). Carlson did further manipulation, and in the final stage, Cinder completed the work. None of that fragmented approach is something one hears in the music. It all sounds like one thing as if they were recording the music together in one studio. The CD has two pieces, each about 20 minutes, maybe with the original intention of a vinyl release. Both pieces are slow burners, as in slowly building up, adding layer upon layer and then, just as slowly, taking things down again. On ‘Where We Are Here’ (a funny title given they weren’t together when recording this), the piano loops, recorded on a cassette, have a prominent place in the piece. At the same time, heavy atmospheric tones walk majestically around that. ‘Our Birds Live Fraught With Danger’ sees more majestic slowness, perhaps from using slowed-down recordings of the same piano, but there are also heavily treated field recordings. Towards the end, the higher frequencies pick up in this piece and add a mild noise/distortion element to the music, adding an element of surprise. This CD may hold little surprise for fans of these artists, but the results are excellent. (FdW)
––– Address: https://falsewalls1.bandcamp.com

GIANCARLO TONIUTTI & DEISON & MASSIMO TONIUTTI – DUE SCRITTI IMPERFETTI (CD by 13)

The Toniutti brothers still live in Udine, where they have their studio. Over two years, they worked with Italian musician Deison on the three pieces on this CD. It is an interesting combination of musical talents, even when it made me realise I don’t know much about them and how they work. Perhaps I think I know about the Toniutti brothers. I always think of them as creators of long-form installation pieces, wood, ropes, and metal bits they play, each in their unique way. Did they ever work together? That’s a question for another day. Cristiano Deison, I know, as someone with a guitar and many effects, but maybe there’s not much of this here. There are three pieces on this CD; the two bookend pieces are pretty long, and there is a short, three-minute track in between. It curiously sounds exactly like I would expect it to sound, and you’re wrong to think I am disappointed; I love it.
There’s an almost poetic thing on the website that is too good not to quote in full: “Pâte de verres, invisible spikes and wires scrape, the blend grows and gets together tapping strings, with ribs and stretchers and blowing on the borders, on excited foils, bows and hairs are skipping, slats and staves rebounds, self-built air streams, gliding tiny machines, buzz and dives, fast, faster in the space like tape and knot, stripes and stitches, and fine-tuning timbres, using chisel and timbre and detail and hundreds more modes and means, alloys and montgolfiers, groups or clusters slide away to the boundaries and details tell tales.” That sums it up for me very well. To me, that says the music is very much this large acoustic object (or more) to be plucked, tapped, bowed, scraped and whatever else one can apply to get sound out of it. It was not a single time to play it, but I imagine they recorded a lot of times and then, via a complicated process, edited, mixed, reduced and expanded the material. The music has beautiful density, long, complex structures, and clear-cut sections. But it remains obscured music also, part of that density, I guess, which makes it very mysterious. If anything, the three pieces remind me of most of Giancarlo’s solo work, and his input might be significant. But that’s not to say the other two are helping hands only. It’s hard to figure out who did what here, but the result is fantastic. An excellent example of an electro-acoustic work. (FdW)
––– Address: http://store.silentes.it/
––– Address: https://creativesources.bandcamp.com/

THEA FARHADIAN – TATTOOS AND OTHER MARKINGS (CD by Other Minds)

When I read the information about this release, I expected something different. Still, maybe I overlooked the word “electronic” as it says this work is “an electronic composition exploring the symbolic power of memory. After discovering a rarely discussed tattooing practice among female survivors of the Armenian Genocide, Farhadian became motivated to investigate questions about what has the power to be known and archived, what is remembered and what is forgotten. Tattoos and Other Markings is a compelling sonic search for the in-between, of remembering and forgetting, of culture in diaspora, of what we take with us and leave behind.” Maybe because Other Minds releases a lot of contemporary music, I expected this to be something similar, perhaps some with electronics and instruments and, looking at the description, heavily text-based. None of this is the case here, and the CD surprised me. Thea Farhadian is from the San Francisco Bay Area, playing the violin and working with “interactive electronics, acoustic improvisation, solo laptop, radio art, and scoring experimental video. Her solo pieces for violin and electronics combine a classical music background with extended technique, digital processing, and extensive improvisation.” ‘Tattoos and Other Markings’ is her second solo album and “is an evocation of the symbols of cultural memory and integrates ethnographic materials with a more mechanical, abstracted soundscape”. That’s precisely what she does here, maybe removing the subject from the music. It’s not easy to hear something about “rarely discussed tattooing practice among female survivors of the Armenian Genocide”, as whatever voice there is, there is no text as such to follow or understand. The story behind the music becomes an independent thing, and I am one of those people who think this is not a bad idea. That is not to say I don’t think the concept, stories, and ideas behind it are of no interest, but I am a music man, pure music, which allows me to wander off in another statement of mind, enjoying the abstract music, and make up my own stories. I believe Farhadian is here in “solo laptop”, transforming sounds and my best guess would be these sounds are from voices, but I could be entirely off the mark. The music is intense, even noisy at times, has some very dark textures and is by no means ‘pleasant’ music, but that’s the beauty here. Once planted, you can’t get the idea out of your head about genocide, so all images that come with that, translated into sound, are what one can hear in the music. The tragedy, the noise, the sadness, loss, all of those things, into these heavy blocks of sounds transformed by software. The four pieces are like black clouds over a barren landscape. This CD has some bleak music but also beautiful grimness. (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.otherminds.org/recordings/

GIANCARLO TONIUTTI & DEISON & MASSIMO TONIUTTI – DUE SCRITTI IMPERFETTI (CD by 13)

MASKHEAD – PASSION BRUISES (CD by 999 Cuts)

I think the 29th cut is the deepest, and so from our favourite noise label from Israel; here we have the ‘demon from Finland’, a.k.a. Maskhead. As with the other Finnish noise project released in the same batch – V.C.O.B.T. – Maskhead is an anonymous project, so no clue whatsoever, so the first paragraph (the about section) is already written: ‘I don’t know, he’s from Finland and he’s loud’. Check. Interestingly, however, he is promoted with the info ‘[…] uses self-made oscillators’, so who knows, being a DIY guy myself, I might have encountered him on some platform already. Who knows, the fun of anonymity.
The cover of “Passion Bruises” is filled with ladies in ropes and gagged, etc. It’s seemingly normal for this kind of music to have a bit of a shock element still, but in all honesty, being an old grey fart, there is not much that shocks me anymore. Yeah, well. That’s currently the most shocking thing I can think of. So, a fun cut-up style cover and music to fit the imagery. As the promo says: ‘Drawing inspiration from sleazy grindhouse movies and extreme sexual behaviours’ but admit it, since shades of grey, should BDSM and torture still be considered extreme? Or is it maybe extreme in its context? Is BDSM a taboo in Finland? Or maybe illegal? I honestly don’t know. But it would explain a lot.
The music itself is nice, though, with lovely feedback drones, harsh metal percussion (I think), loads of distortion and many layers of weirdness. On a correct volume, it’s hypnotising as hell, and while listening several times, I found myself in my world of chaos, working my ass off on a few projects on the computer. Exactly how I like to be pushed into my mental environment. (BW)
––– Address: https://www.999cuts.com/

INGEBRIGT HÅKER FLATEN (EXIT) KNARR – BREEZY (CD, private)

(EXIT) KNARR is the name of the composition commissioned by Vossajazz, the edition of 2020. That edition fell through because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the third release by that band, only in name because there were quite a few personnel changes. The first one is called (Exit) Knarr after the composition. The second is a live album with mostly the same personnel recorded at the Artacts Festival 2022 in Sankt Johann, Austria. And now Breezy. Again, a septet. A septet with the following members: Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (bass/compositions), Mette Rasmussen (alto sax), Karl Hjalmar Nyberg (tenor and soprano sax), Erik Kimestad Pedersen (trumpet), Oscar Grönberg (piano), Jonathan F. Horne (guitar) and Olaf Moses Olsen (drums). Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir, the guitarist of the band’s previous incarnation, plays the guitar intro on Hilma and Joakim Rainer Petersen, from the incarnation that played at Artarcts– synth on Ability & Breezy. It’s a short release, five pieces in just over a half hour. But what music! It starts with a bass ostinato on bass and guitar. It’s polymetric and polyrhythmic because the rest of the band joins them with a melody and rhythm in another time signature. The piece’s title is Dylar, the experimental drug mentioned in Don Delillo’s novel White Noise. A drug that reduces the fear of death of the person that takes the drug. That anguish is palpable in the music. The theme is brought in after the ostinato returns and is expanded upon. The anguish is gone, and it becomes pretty euphoric and peaceful. And that is just the first piece. Every piece of music is vibrant, colourful and expressive. It’s a condensation of the history of jazz. And the band sounds not as a septet but as a full-blown big band. Closer is dedicated to Jaimie Branch, the late and great trumpet player. Ingebrigt penned this tune when he heard that Jaimie had left this earth. She was a close friend. This comes highly, highly recommended and is Manonfriendly. She hasn’t heard this yet but will several times on a very long car trip next Sunday. Hot of the press: a new release by Knarr is in the works. Recordings were, I think, completed yesterday. In the meantime, Listen to THIS! (MDS)
––– Address: https://ingebrigtflaten.bandcamp.com/album/breezy

BLEAK END – SUNT LACRIMAE RERUM: A COMPLETE DISCOGRAPHY (3″CD by No Sides Records)

In the string of 3-inch CDs released in November, this one caught my eye. The description read: “Chicago, IL-cum-Mount Shasta, CA lo-fi no wave rap banger Bernie Bleak’s two cassettes from 2009 and 2010 get a proper digital remaster and reissue. Vanessa Harris of COUGHS guests on guitar to boot. The abyss never sounded so good.” The first eight songs, lasting eleven minutes, are complete When Life Gives You Lemons release with Bernie Bleak on vocals and BOSS DR-202, a drum computer. Another name he uses is Ossian Winningham. The second half is the complete Beach Blanket Blackout release from 2010. That one was already released in 2017 as a cassette with two different mixes on each side. This one contains the raw mix, I believe. In addition to Bernie on vocals and DR-202, there’s Vanessa Harris on guitars. Six songs, and to top the complete discography off, there’s a live version of The Curse.
What can you expect? Short to shorter songs with pounding lo-fi drum beats and synthy notes, courtesy of the BOSS DR-202. The vocals remind me of Ariel Pink or Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt. To my ears, fascinating music, although I haven’t paid that much attention to the lyrics. I’m not a lyrics guy. Anyway: give this a listen. You might like it. I know I do. (MDS)
––– Address: https://nosidesrecords.bandcamp.com/

ALEXEY SHMURAK & OLEH SHPUDEIKO – LIEBESTOD (LP by Kyiv Dispatch)

I love to support any Ukranian artist who, despite the war circumstances, finds time to do music and start a new label, Kyiv Dispatch. They are here to support Ukraine’s contemporary classical and experimental music scene. Their inaugural release is an LP by Oleh Shpudeiko (aka Heinali) and Alexey Shmurak; the latter is described as a “towering figure in Ukraine who remains little known outside the country—partly due to his focus on performative practice”. I am not sure if there is a good English translation for ‘Liebestod’, which involves the words love and death. This is described as “within the experimental song field” and comes with four long pieces and vocals, “a multi-genre, multi-language exploration of love, loss, fear, nostalgia, and the collapse of intimate and collective realities, featuring poetic texts spanning centuries. Shmurak’s self-deprecating, vulnerable vocals are set against pressure-building electronics, and his signature musical humour also finds its place in the album”. The humour side eludes me if I am honest. The music leans more to contemporary classic music than anything I would describe as ‘experimental’. The opening piece, ‘Heartily’, has a somewhat plink plonk piano part at one point, and the vocals are operatic, and, again, being honest, didn’t do much for me; too smooth, jazzy/classical for my taste. ‘Quietly’ is more interesting, as music (not so much the voice), with building blocks of organ sounds and some far away piano. A spinet dominates ‘Massacre’, along with a music box, and the voice sounds intense and dramatic, and it’s a great piece. The final piece is ‘Ode To A Nightingale’ (as in Florence? I am thinking of her time nursing the wounded during the Crimean War (1853-1856)), quite a different beast. There is a low-end bass part, maybe electronic and drums, a bit drum ‘n bass-like. At times, but also with dreamy electronics. It’s also a dramatic piece but stirred away from any contemporary classic music, unlike the other three pieces, except maybe for the voice (again). Throughout a most eclectic record, and not all for me, and perhaps outside the world of Vital Weekly. (FdW)
––– Address: https://kyivdispatch.bandcamp.com/

RED BRUT – ON BARE GROUND (LP by Dead Mind Records/Econore/Coherent States)

I only once reviewed something by Marijn Verbiesen’s project Red Brut (Vital Weekly 1008), which I believe was early on. Verbiesen was/is also a member of Goldblum (of which I reviewed various releases) and the lovely no-wave group Sweat Tongue. The Red Brut project took off with LP releases for (K-RAA-K)³ and Lal Lal Lal/Ikuisuus. (K-RAA-K)³ and “Cloaked Travels” (2020) on the Finnish labels Lal Lal Lal and Ikuisuus. This new LP is also a collaboration between three labels: Dead Mind, Econore and Coherent States. As far as I know the original idea was this: Verbiesen records field recordings on cassettes and has up to nine machines to play them. In a concert situation, she picks up tapes randomly and creates an ad hoc sound collage. I doubt she uses a similar random approach to her studio work, but you never know. There is more than field recordings; I hear drum machines, electronics, and the odd little melody. ‘On Bare Ground’ contains ten pieces, all around three minutes, once the perfect pop song length (not these days), and with the variety of sounds used, there is some fine urgency in the music. Quite abstract sound collages sometimes, with a somewhat random feeling, but also rhythmic and melodic, resulting in coherent compositions. While these pieces may have a ‘pop’ length, none of these ten miniatures have a pop music feeling, not even the the more rhythmic and melodic ones. There is some fine introvert quality to the music, something house-bound, if you will. Red Brut does very little to polish her music with sound effects, not much reverb or delay unless it is part of the original recording (humming in a stairwell, for instance). Very nice! FdW)
––– Address: https://dead-mind.bandcamp.com/

SIMON ÖGGL – XENOTOPIA (LP by Col Legno)
LOS PANTEROS – 24 RIBS (cassette by Archipel Editions)

I know the Austrian Col Legno label as people who like contemporary music. If you look at the cover and instruments such as trumpet, flute, soprano, trombone, countertenor and cello mentioned, the thought one might have this is another one in the same musical field is easily made. And maybe it is. I had never heard of Simon Öggl, whose “Unique sound language results from the recontextualisation of acoustic and electronic compositional techniques and sounds. By continuously questioning the nature of sound, the distinction between traditional and innovative sound production becomes obsolete.” The Italian composer is responsible for programming, percussion, synthesiser, piano and vocals. It still could go any way, and that’s what the music does. Early on, I thought Öggl wanted to produce some progressive rock with quick changes and weird time signatures. There are also moments of reflective music, a bit of drum ‘n bass patterns here and there and probably contemporary classic music. It’s not too tricky or dissonant, in case that’s what springs to mind when you hear such words, but rather melodic. And yet also quite complex. It is music that is not my thing, nor something for Vital Weekly, and that’s mainly due to its prog-rock leaning, if I could call it such. You see, none of this is my field of expertise.
Something very similar I can say about the release by Los Panteros, a duo of composer/bassist Tony Elieh and songwriter/vocalist Aya Metwalli. They played together at the Irtijal Music Festival in Berlin. I had not heard of either musician before. Elieh “is essentially a rhythm beast who in his early career cofounded Scrambled Eggs, one of the most prominent punk bands in Lebanon,” and “Metwalli is essentially a melodist who grew up listening to and being trained to sing a vast repertoire of classical Egyptian music. When she bloomed and expanded her sound palette, she started deviating from the correct notes and exploring the in-betweens of the microtones of Arabic scales and modes, ever so flirting between consonance and dissonance” (unsure why the label uses the word essential twice). The bass is sometimes heavily processed and becomes hard to recognise. With no knowledge, I would say some of the melodic content is Middle Eastern, both the bass and the vocals, and some is very abstract. It may be no surprise if the latter suits my taste, as I feel a bit lost with something that sounds more traditional to my ears, but again, what do I know? This release is a headscratcher for different reasons, and I couldn’t figure out if this is something for Vital Weekly. I enjoyed the music more than I did with Öggl’s album. (FdW)
––– Address: https://collegnomusic.bandcamp.com/
––– Address: https://archipeleditions.bandcamp.com/album/24-ribs

TAÂLEM ADVENT CALENDAR 2024 PART 2

04: MAURIZIO BIANCHI – SHREDS (3″ CDR by Taalem)

I am not 100% sure about this, but Maurizio Bianchi might be the oldest contributor to this series. His recording career started in the late 1970s via a string of self-published LPs and cassettes, came to a halt in the early 1980s and picked up much speed after the year 2000. There are many different approaches Bianchi takes in his works, and it’s fashionable to call his first period to be his best, ‘Shreds’ proves he still pushes the limit of experimental music. We may be used to the unpleasant bleakness of his old music, playing it for 40 years; these two ‘Shreds’ a piercing electronic stabs in the higher frequency region; the low end is completely gone, and what remains is Bianchi’s love for aleatoric playing random stabs and chords in both these pieces. Both pieces felt alien when I heard them, but I grew familiar with every listening turn. (FdW)

05: FLAVIEN GILLIÉ – MES YEUX FATIGUENT VITE (3″ CDR by Taalem)

It will be no surprise to learn that Taâlem asked many musicians from the previous, extensive catalogue. I don’t know much about Flavien Gillié other than reviewing his CD on Unfathomless (Vital Weekly 1038) and a mini CDR for Taâlem (Vital Weekly 1180). Both of these works dealt with heavily processed field recordings, and the title doesn’t say much about the field recordings; ‘my eyes easily tyre’ or such. Lots of sonic filtering, extensive layering and such like is what he does best, and that’s also the case on this release. Movements within the piece are minimal but there are very much in place. And so, within 20 minutes, Gillié offers a nice little trip down a rusty road, rippling waves and sweeping winds, desolated lands maybe, but it all sounds charming. Not his best or worst work, but a steady progress from previous work. (FdW)

06: LECANORA – RUST (3″ CDR by Taalem)

Only vaguely I recognised the name Lecanora, but my writing is in a very far away past (Vital Weekly 348 and 612). Lecanora is the music project of Cyril Herry, who also works as Ninth Desert and as Exotoendo, Sechres Mound, The Uncanny and Salamandre; not all names I recognise. Unlike many others in this 24-part series, Lecanora has three pieces on this release. It’s unlike what I heard so far in this series (I am also playing the ones I don’t review in strict chronological order), and, sure, the music here is also very atmospheric, but not as strictly drone-based. The main difference is using real instruments, such as percussion and wind instruments (even when it’s difficult to say which one they are). They play slow tunes, firmly embedded with sound effects such as reverb and some pitching. In the third piece, ‘Rust On Brass’, this pitching leads to the most droning, along the scrape of violin and slow drum, whereas ‘China’ sounds like heavily controlled wind chimes. In ‘Rust On Rust’, it’s primarily layered wind instruments. Of the first six, this is the most musical one. (FdW)

07: DESACCORD MAJEUR – LES JUGEMENTS DE GOUT (3″ CDR by Taalem)

Time flies when you’re having fun, right? This is the 7th 3″ in the calendar and, again, a slightly rhythmical one. It’s not danceable but rhythmical enough to be considered hypnotic or ritual. “Les Jugements de goût” (judgments of taste) is a just 20 minutes composition by a long-time and well-known Déssaccord Majeur and opens with a nice beat structure and some low pads to create an atmosphere. Then, a few melody lines are added, and patterns constantly shift in the front and back of the mix. Some strings are added at some points, and it almost becomes a drone-pop song. Adding a few whispering vocals would have turned this into something for larger audiences than just those 80 people who own the sold-out Box and those of you getting the downloads as the next best thing. This is a fun track by an artist I only have a few tracks on samplers. Maybe it’s time to dive into his work a bit deeper. That’s why I still like samplers or collections like these. To explore! (BW)

08: MODELBAU – MECHANICAL SHADOWS OF THE FADING LIGHT (3″ CDR by Taalem)

I don’t know the meaning or origin of the poetic title, but on this track, Modelbau, a.k.a. Frans de Waard, starts a bit more erratic than what I’m used to from him. But finding that basic drone we know and love him for doesn’t take long. At the same time, Modelbau, being Modelbau, will not do the same thing twice, so after a few minutes of drones, the creepy high-pitched frequencies enter the composition, and nothing is as it seems anymore. I have no clue what the origin of all the used sounds is. Still, it ranges from – possibly – the same organ Maurizio Bianchi used on #4 in this series, field recordings from a Sunday afternoon sitting alongside the canal or river, toys and stuff he collected over the years and never threw out because ‘I might use it some time still’ and loads of gear of all sorts to manipulate granules / micro samples/soundbites as per definition of Jos Smolders. At moments, this track is creepy or eerie; in other moments, it’s almost symphonic or sacral; at some moments, it’s “mechanical”, as the title suggests. Only the end is fading, though. That’s called an outro. (BW)

09: JOHN GRZINICH – WEATHERING INSIDE(3″ CDR by Taalem)

In 2007, John Grzinich released a 3″ on Taâlem as Jgrzinich, and since then, he’s been a constant name in the free annual releases of the label. His name didn’t ring a bell, but Discogs tells me I should have known, seeing labels like Cronica Saamleng and Nitkie in his discography. John is from the US and resides in Estonia. His compositions are based on field recordings, and the adaptation and manipulation of those sounds is precisely why the Saamleng label triggered me in his discography, as they are doing some nice stuff in that field. “Weathering Inside” is quite long for a 3″ even, 22:30 so he takes his time to compose. Slow movements with mostly recognisable sounds and, at moments, even the feeling sounds were created as the composition missed a specific frequency or pattern. It was raining outside, and a few leaks or water were dripping from the roof, triggering the composition’s first part. But the best thing about it is that a new atmosphere is created by what those sounds started. It’s a nice piece we have here. (BW)

10: I-WOUND – THIS IS NOT THE PRESENT

Wow, I-wound! Or, perhaps, i-wound. Now, there’s a blast from the past. This is Sascha Karminski’s music project, and if Discogs is anything to go by, his last release was from 2009, but his main body work was already in the 1990s. I readily admit I know the name more than the music, as it all happened in an underground I wasn’t part of, and our record store didn’t stock these. Somewhere I have the idea it was noise-based, or maybe some cruder ambient music. Perhaps I only imagine that based on hearing ‘this is NOT the present’. It’s a most curious title. What does it mean? Are we dealing here with an archival piece of music? Or we’re listening to music not recorded in the present? Either way, it’s a fine piece of crude loops, bell-like sounds (maybe laptop-processed sine waves), acoustic object treatments, and an opening segment of what could be heavily processed music from the shopping mall. From what I remember from the old music was a love for all things cruder and naive and never about technical perfection. Very nice; the come-back (mini-) album? (FdW)
––– Address: https://taalem.bandcamp.com/

SOFTENON BABE – DE MORTE PER CIBORUM (3″ CDR by 999 Cuts)

The third release in the stash of 999 Cuts is a lovely little 3″ CDR, which this Vital has already seen 7 of earlier. This one, however, isn’t part of the Taalem advent calendar; it’s a fresh new project out of France heavily influenced by 90’s death industrial, death ambient and experimental minimal noise. Softenon Babe is the project of Emma, who – in her own words ‘tells stories, grim and desperate ones, mostly about disability and how Society treats it. And I bury them deep in gritty soundscapes adorned with some synth lines.’ So why should I change anything in her words?
This 3″ had three tracks based on the theme of death by food, and no, this does not always mean food poisoning. Emma studied several themes, and most of us, a bit older, remember Mad Cow Disease very well from the mid-90s. Initially a disease, sheep could jump the barrier to cows simply because another way of cooking leftover meat was cheaper. And it was turned into food for cows, and they got ill. Spongification of the brain to certain prions, and those can remain hurtful probably through the Big Bang. And if you ate red meat, there was a chance you could get ill. And die, Creutzfeldt Jakob, until then only seen in the Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea due to their ritual cannibalism. So it’s happy times here with cheerful death ambient!
Without kidding, these three tracks form the first solo release by Softenon Babe after an earlier split cassette with Survivalist. This one is mastered by Thomas Garrison and will appeal to fans of Murderous Vision, old Megaptera and the heavy beats in “Ignis Sacer” will even make BDN fans happy. These tracks, however, are more nihilistic and minimal than the older stuff that – imho – was more in-your-face obnoxious. So it’s a fresh take on a genre you thought couldn’t change any more. Surprise, it can. (BW)
––– Address: https://www.999cuts.com/

SAVVAS METAXAS – FOLK TALES AND THE RAIN (cassette by Wabi Sabi)

We reviewed some of Greek composer Savvas Metaxas’s work before, and I’m sure there’s a lot more. Here’s a new cassette on the French Wabi Sabi label. Among his sound sources, he uses guitars, field recordings and electronics. On ‘Folk Tales And The Rain’, it’s mainly the first two, and Metaxas uses “the guitar and its effects as if they were samples”, mixing these with the sounds of “bells, birds, radio, flutes and rain”. None take the leading role here, even when the guitar is best recognised. The music takes on a very atmospheric approach here. I am reminded of Manuel Mota’s music, in which solitary guitar notes drift about, never to form a melody but more like shimmers from an unknown territory or a different time, residual sounds if you will. The other field recordings are also snapshots of places. Not the same place but a mixed up environment. Think of two photographs in a faded photo album that have been stuck together for years and, once torn apart, show a blurred image. The label gives pointers towards film directors, such as Wenders, Herzog and Lynch, which, for all I know, might also be possible; I just need to see more movies. The music is very much without much linear approach and occasionally sounds like a string of events, and maybe it is as such. It has very little to do with folk music, but I can see this as a folk tale that has faded over time and only the shapes are left. At 27 minutes, perhaps a bit too short, but throughout, two great pieces of music. (FdW)
––– Address: https://wabi-sabi-tapes.bandcamp.com/

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SILVER ABUSE – RUFF KUTZ 2012-2014 (cassette by No Sides Records)

Out on cassette is the third release of Silver Abuse, a punk outfit from Chicago. Around since 1977, with different carnations. The indispensable website punkdatabase.com has this to say about the band: Silver Abuse was one of the original punk bands in Chicago, forming in 1977. There were various versions of Silver Abuse, but the original version starred lifetime members Bill Meehan, Santiago Durango and Camilo Gonzalez, early members of Naked Raygun. Silver Abuse broke up for good in 1983. After the original version of Silver Abuse disbanded in the late 70s, most of the members of SA formed The Wayouts! Even though The Wayouts! Many of the same members of Silver Abuse, their laser-sharp, sardonic and cartoonish one-minute pop missives varied so greatly from Silver Abuse’s sloppy yet spot-on political and social dissections that they are best not included in the greater Silver Abuse bestiary. Some of The Wayouts!’ members became Silver Abuse again after their last show on New Year’s Eve, 1980. There was also a later spin-off group called Burden of Friendship. They are featured in the 2007 documentary “You Weren’t There”. It features recordings and alternative versions of their 2016 release “Consider the Pidgeon”, which had been in the works for a long time and shows. This cassette is a sort of companion release. This is the first time I’ve heard of this band. And it’s a revelation. Tinkling synths, combined with rolling riffs, which Sonic Youth has used many times, have relevant lyrics with many cultural references. And that bass! Paul Harvey, Idi Amin and his fear of a talking tortoise (true story!) and an abduction by a lobster man (with a reprise), allegedly an actual alien abduction in the early seventies. 46 minutes on a cassette. Awesome awesomeness! (MDS)
––– Address: https://nosidesrecords.bandcamp.com/

V.C.O.B.T. – GUILT TRIP (cassette by 999 Cuts)

Here, we have an acronym I haven’t seen before. V.C.O.B.T. stands for Vicious Circle of Black Thoughts, and this happy bunch (or person, who knows because it’s hard to find anything about them) is from Helsinki. This is their third release after a split with UND (also never heard of) and a 7″, both on the Finnish label Blame, The Victim, and that is where things become interesting. Blame The Victim is a hardcore punk label, and maybe the people behind V.C.O.B.T. are also in punk bands, but as said, there is not enough information on the internet to confirm or deny. So it’s all a mystery.
This cassette has a total playing time of just under an hour and consists of two parts. Both sides open with long tracks titled “Guilt Trip”, parts 1 and 2. These tracks are built from material recorded in ’12 and ’13, but it was left alone for 10 years, and assembly took place in 2023. Both guilt trips have a strong LoFi feel about them, which is good. The tracks know different parts; sometimes, the flow between the parts is a bit sudden. Not that it’s a bad thing, but it made me retract the word ‘ambient’ from an earlier version of this review. The sporadic use of metal junk noise is the second reason, by the way.
As an extra, the tracks of the 7″ on Blame The Victim were added to this release. Of the three tracks, two are metal junk noise-based and fit perfectly with the ambient-ish approach of the guilt trips. Everything about it doesn’t make it an easy release to review. There is a bit of a schizophrenic character about it. It’s partially loud as f***, and parts are gorgeous Lofi tapestries of sound with delays everywhere. And you know me, I like everything as long as they’re extremes. So this release fits perfectly in my alley, but when you get into it, you’re being sent in another direction. Which is great for variation, but not if you want to listen to some bedtime ambient. All fun aside, this is a proper release if you like it harsh, lofi, and ambient-ish. (BW)
––– Address: https://www.999cuts.com/