 number 1019
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week 6 ---------------------
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ORPHAX - TIME WAVES (CD by Moving Furniture Records) * ZEITKRATZER & KEIJI HAINO - STOCKHAUSEN: AUS DEN SIEBEN TAGEN (CD by Zeitkratzer) * ZEITKRATZER - KORE (CD by Zeitkratzer) * URS LEIMGRUBER & ALEX HUBER – LIGHTNINGS (CD by Wide Ear) THE RIVER - THE SWIM SESSIONS (CD by Sibylsings) TERNOY/CRUZ/ORINS – QEQERTARSUATSIAAT (CD by Circum Disc) SAKAY – ANTIPODES (CD by Circum Disc) OGUZ BUYUKBERBER & TOBIAS KLEIN – REVERSE CAMOUFLAGE (CD by Trytone) PHAROAH CHROMIUM - GAZA (LP, private) OPCION - MONOS/UND (LP by God Records) OGROB & VOMIR - DIFFUSIONS INTRADERMIQUES ET ENREGISTREMENTS EN CAVITES CORPORELLES (LP by Editions Vibrisse) LARY 7 - THE END OF AN ERA (LP by Fylkingen Records) NURSE WITH WOUND/CHARLES-LOUIS PHILIPPE - FAITS DIVERS (3"CD/book by Lenka Lente) * VIRTARANTA OKUDA BERGER TRIO - LIVE @ ROJISCE (CDR by Zvocniprepihi) * SHO SHIN DUO – FREE THE CAT (CDR by Setola Di Maiale) * JAMIE DROUIN - ATTRACTION (CDR by Rhizome.s) * DOMINIC LASH WITH PATRICK FARMER AND TIM FEENEY - PERFORMANCE (CDR by Rhizome.s) * GOH LEE KWANG - RADIO STATION EXP (3"CDR by 1000Füssler) * SIMON WHETHAM - CONTRIVANCE (3"CDR by 1000Füssler) * DIATRIBE & CHRISTIAN ALVEAR - ROSHAMBO (TRIO) (3"CDR by 1000Füssler) * YAN JUN - ON 3 PIPES (3"CDR by 1000Füssler) * RAY SANDS - ESCALATOR ATTENDANT (3"CDR by Ceil) * BEBE ET LULU - UN HYDROLAT LACRYMAL (cassette by Z6 Records) * ORPHAX - TIME WAVES (CD by Moving Furniture Records) Surely one busy bee, our Orphax man Sietse van Erve. Besides selling eco friendly phones and creating music, he runs his own Moving Furniture Records label, which slowly expands into a true minor major, certainly in The Netherlands, where it's one of the bigger players in the label scene for experimental sounds. Starting out with CDRs, these days he also does LPs and CDs and as such finds space for his own music, also slowly reaching a wider audience. I am not sure what decides for him to release his own music on a CDR and when on a CD, but quality certainly has something to do with that. The music on 'Time Waves' was recorded in concert in December 2014 and on a single day in March 2015 and uses the Casio SA-10 and his favourite bit of software, Audiomulch. It's a set-up he's been using for some time now (although the choice of keyboard sometimes changes) and it's something that works very well for him. It enables Orphax to create rich, textured drone music with quite some variation. His concert recording and session at home - all music recorded live - is cut together as one, forty-four minute piece of music and easily matches his recent highlight, 'Dream Sequence #1'. 'Time Waves', inspired by his time studying geology, is at this length a more varied piece, moving from the first eleven minutes in a darkness, then a much lighter tone before fading into grey again and going towards near silence, before building towards an insect like ending to the piece. Those are the principal part to this piece and Orphax takes time in his development of the piece, slowly and minimal but it's always moving and changing. It reminded me of some of the work of Brendan Murray or Eliane Radigue, but gentler than the first and perhaps more playful than the second. Slowly Orphax matures his music and 'Time Waves' I would easily rank among his best works. (FdW) Address: http://www.movingfurniturecords.com ZEITKRATZER & KEIJI HAINO - STOCKHAUSEN: AUS DEN SIEBEN TAGEN (CD by Zeitkratzer) ZEITKRATZER - KORE (CD by Zeitkratzer) While I know various people who vehemently hate Stockhausen for his pretentious works (string quartets in helicopters, wtf), I am not one of them. That is not to say I like too much of his music. I used to have some favourites, such as 'Telemusik', 'Gesang Der Junglinge' and 'Hymnen', but I thought 'Stimmung' was a real stinker when I found that dirt-cheap second hand (and upon playing I realized why). I heard several of his other works too, but not the seven-day opera 'Licht'. I know, my bad. In his gigantic oeuvre the work 'Aus Den Sieben Tagen' is something of an anomaly. This work consists of fifteen written texts, which can be freely performed by the players. The musicians working with Stockhausen at that time wanted to have a bigger credit for the playing, considering their input, effectively making them co-composers. Written text scores are exactly the kind of thing that Zeitkratzer would love to perform. When rehearsing this in Bochum for their performance of this piece, Keiji Haino watched from the side and decided on the spot to join Zeitkratzer. You can easily find the score online and it's recommended to have a look at that when listening to this performance. We hear Zeitkratzer, an ensemble of modern music which uses instruments such as clarinet, French horn, trombone, piano, drums, percussion, acoustic noises, violin, violoncello, double bass and voice (by mister Haino) perform these pieces with quite some imagination. Which is very understandable as Stockhausen leaves the performers much freedom. Long sustaining acoustic noises are produced on these instruments, without any fixed notes; lots of clustered tones and with a great orchestral feel to it, with Haino making long form sounds, but also hissing, burping, shouting adding quite a bit of tension to the piece. Excellent work, but maybe that is what one expects from Zeitkratzer. Zeitkratzer's boss, Reinhold Friedl, is also their piano player and sometimes composes pieces for his ensemble. Last week we already reviewed a 12" with a composition by his hand dedicated to Greek composer Iannis Xenakis, and 'Kore' is another one. Xenakis is, I hope at least, the well-known composer of loud pieces of densely orchestrated sounds as well as excellent tape pieces as 'Persepolis' and 'La Legende d'Eer'. In his new composition 'Kore', recorded in concert in January 2013, the group experiments with amplifying acoustic instruments, which works very well in this homage to the music of Xenakis. It's also a very dense piece, of everything and everybody scraping, plucking and blowing their instruments together, which sounds like a very random chaos upon superficial inspection. But if you listen closely you will hear instruments popping up out of the mix, the French horn, the piano, strings and you can follow these closely throughout the piece. With each new listening session you have the option of following particular instruments. The third piece (four on the CD, but the cover only lists a 'part 1' and 'part 2', probably because this is also released on vinyl) starts as the most quiet one, but eventually leads up to also dense scratching and scraping. This is a most worthy homage to the work of Xenakis; not an easy work, but one that should be played extremely loud and while the listener is not engaged in doing anything else. (FdW) Address: http://www.zeitkratzer.com URS LEIMGRUBER & ALEX HUBER – LIGHTNINGS (CD by Wide Ear) Leimgruber is a reputed saxophonist from Switzerland. For him it started in the 70s with his quartet Om, in the company of Christy Doran, Fredy Studes and Bobby Burri, and many international collaborations followed (Don Friedman, Marilyn Crispell, Barre Philips, a.o.). Huber is a drummer and improviser of a younger generation and happens also to be one of the co-founders of Wide Ear Records. They make up a fabulous couple as this live recording underlines. Recorded at the Kunsthaus in Zug in 2014. They produced some very pronounced and captivating improvisations that night. Especially the playing by Leimgruber impressed me with his beautiful tone, and his expressive and emotional performance. But also the impressionistic playing by Huber is excellent. The improvisations are highly abstract, which implies that there are moments that I lose contact, where the music just seems to drift by without noticing an inner logic. But be sure overall the opposite is the case during the four improvisations on this record. A very intense and concentrated tour de force. (DM) Address: http://www.wideearrecords.ch THE RIVER - THE SWIM SESSIONS (CD by Sybilsings) The River is a project of singer-songwriter Lily Kiara. It is about combining folk pop songs with improvised music and English poetry. We hear Michael Moore (clariniets, sax), Felicity Provan (trumpet, voice), Michael Vatcher (drums, percussion), Joost Buis (trombone, lapsteel guitar), Lily Kiara (guitar, voice) and Julyen Hamilton (poetry). Kiara comes from dance and performance arts, worked with many musicians and improvisers over the years, especially from the Amsterdam-scene. In 2006 she started to play guitar and sing and perform poems, accompanied with a few musicians. This led to the formation of her sextet The River in 2009. ´The Swim Sessions´ is their first record. The opening track ‘Fish + Quiet as Water’ introduces us to the pleasant voice of Kiara in a folky ballad. The next title ‘Belly Flop + Little Pink Girl’ combines a spirited improvised intro with again a ballad, introduced by Kiara on guitar. What follows is a poem “I Bought You a Duck’ spoken by Hamilton, with sparse playing of Moore in the background. And so we jump from one format to another on this cd that is rich in contrast. The closing track ‘HTML + Lifeguard’ starts as a ‘funky’ instrumental, before disappearing in ten minutes of complete silence. Then suddenly an exotic song appears and completes this entertaining and varied work, released on Sibyl Sings, a label for music and poetry by Kiara. It shows that poetry, improvisation and folksongs can be good and inspiring neighbours for one other. (DM) Address: http://www.sibylsings.com/ TERNOY/CRUZ/ORINS – QEQERTARSUATSIAAT (CD by Circum Disc) SAKAY – ANTIPODES (CD by Circum Disc) Circum is a collective of musicians based in Lille. Many of their releases on their own Circum Disc have been presented here in the past. Here two of their latest efforts. On ‘Qeqertarsuatsiaat’ we meet Peter Orins on drums, accompanied by Jeremie Ternoy on piano and Ivann Cruz, playing guitar. We know them as TOC. But this time they use their full names, indicating they are in for something else now. Instead of playing electrified, they chose for acoustical instruments this time: piano, classical guitar and drums. But as in TOC, their music comes about through collective improvisation. Timbre is in important aspect they play with in the seven improvisations that are in this cd. These excursions ask for attentive listening otherwise they pass by unnoticed. If you do, you discover the intensity of their sober improvisations that are very open and reflective in nature. As if a soft wind blows through their music. I guessed the title of this CD is a nonsensical word, but there seems to be a place on Greenland with exactly the same name. All tracks are named after distant, isolated regions on our planet. Sakay is a quartet of Jérôme Descamps (trombone), Christian Pruvost (trumpet), Nicolas Mahieux (contrebasse) and – again - Peter Orins (drums). All eleven tracks are compositions by Sakay, so they probably resulted from group improvisation. Again we are invited for acoustical improvisations. The instrumentation is different, but there are similarities, as these improvisations unfold from a comparable mood, resulting in open, quietly progressing structures. (DM) Address: http://www.circum-disc.com OGUZ BUYUKBERBER & TOBIAS KLEIN – REVERSE CAMOUFLAGE (CD by Trytone) Tobias Klein is a German musician who moved to Amsterdam in the 90s, studying saxophone and clarinet with Jasper Blom and Harry Sparnaaij. He became quickly part of the Amsterdam music scene. He operates mainly in the field of improvised music and jazz. He may be most known for his work with the Spinifex Ensemble. Oğuz Büyükberber is of Turkish origin and did also studies in Amsterdam with Harry Sparnaaij and Theo Loevendie. He integrates his Turkish musical roots in his improvisation. Often he plays solo, but he has also a trio with pianist Simon Nabatov and drummer Gerry Hemingway. As a duo they work for ten years now. And the release of ‘Reverse Camouflage’ is to celebrate this fact. The CD was presented last month at the 'Basclarinet Festijn' 2016 in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Both musicians play bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet and Bb clarinet. The CD counts thirteen duets. Ten of them are improvised. Klein composes three pieces. Melody is not part of their complex music. But they are very much into structure. Which brings them close to contemporary composed music. Both have an excellent technique and make good use of the possibilities of the instruments as the discovered them over the years. Each track has its own face. That makes this cd gives wide and broad view on their spectrum. Sometimes they play with a jazzy phrasing. Sometimes they are noisy and cacophonic, to followed by delicate and poetic moments and everything always in a fine interplay. (DM) Address: http://www.trytone.org PHAROAH CHROMIUM - GAZA (LP, private) More and more I like to engage less and less with the world of politics. The more I think about any political situation, the more I realize I really don't know anything about it. Especially when it's another 'them' and 'us' discussion, with loads of heated, (mis-) use of historical arguments (and the philosophy of history is something I did read about, albeit some years ago). Also, and I risk making a few more enemies here ('you know politics will always interfere with you, so you should not ignore it'), I also think politics and music don't mix very well. Spoken word, cover texts, images on covers: all of those surely have a political meaning but not the actual music itself. So you can imagine I may have a problem with the record by Pharoah Chromium, who plays acoustics and electronics on 'Gaza', a 'sonic deconstruction and reconstruction of events that took place during operation Protective Edge in July & August 2014. Based on found sound taken from all available sources and across a range of media, each side ends with a locked groove of the engine noise of an Israeli drone in operation to give listeners the experience of the sound of day-to-day life in the Gaza strip'. I didn't need to read on and see which side Pharoah Chromium is on. There is a bit of synth noise mixed in with these snippets of broadcast, mostly in English and not always clearly audible. Sitting here in a very quiet street in a very quiet town, I indeed have no idea what life in Gaza was like during 'Protective Edge'. During that period two close musical friends of mine were opposites; one being pro-Palestinian while the other was in hiding in Tel Aviv while on holiday. 'You have no idea what it's like here’, was an argument both of them used. You could listen to this record, and you have an idea. As a piece of music I was reminded of old school power electronics, but this time with a less ambiguous message. But all of this not exactly my cup of tea. (FdW) Address: http://pharoahchromium.bandcamp.com/album/gaza OPCION - MONOS/UND (LP by God Records) From Graz, Austria hails Nikos Zachariadis, who works as Opcion and his working principle is 'reconfiguration' by which he means 'to use existing materials, structures, ideas, techniques, conditions, machines etc., to create new intense, gloomy or strident atmospheres and situations'. He was part of the label Splitterwerk until 2011, and exhibited his work at festivals around the world. This is his first record and on both sides he does something different. On the 'Und' side we find three pieces he recored with a guest instrumentalist, Maja Osojnik (Paetzold bass recorder), Bernard Loibner (electric bass) and Kurt Bauer (violin). It's interesting to note that in none of these three pieces it is easy to recognize any of these instruments, but that's perhaps also because these players themselves use quite some electronics. In these pieces, Opcion (and guests) reach for a more heavy-duty musique concrete sound, leaning heavily towards the use of electronics to transform these sounds into pieces with strong dynamics, ranging from the quiet end to the massively loud ones. The other side also has three pieces and the spins from the label to the outer ring - a nice thing, which is not used a lot. Here Opcion is on his own and adds to the amorphous masses of granular synthesized ambient sounds a whole lot of drum samples, with some strong bass end. These beats not necessarily constitute of dance rhythms, but rather adding an unsettling character to the music and he manages at that. I can imagine this music in a live situation working even better than on record; the relative loudness at home may not work that well for this forceful stuff. Loud and intense, that's what this music is about. Musique concrete spiced up with a strong set of beats. (FdW) Address: http://www.godrec.com OGROB & VOMIR - DIFFUSIONS INTRADERMIQUES ET ENREGISTREMENTS EN CAVITES CORPORELLES (LP by Editions Vibrisse) Here's one of those total surprises, shattering ones expectations. Now, with Vomir I would think: this is going to be some harsh noise, loud and monotonous. The music of Ogrob I know not as well, but Sebastian Borgo, who has some fine releases under this guise, using electronics and field recordings. Perhaps not something you would easily see fitting together, but it gets more crazy if you read the information: "Diffusion of noises via loudspeakers attached on the rib cages of four women. Mix of international noises, bodily fluid's noises, with the streamed noises. Transmitting bodies, bodies as loudspeakers" and to top that off "Captations via a hydrophonic microphone placed within their vaginas" - pictures are included on a set on postcards with this record. That's by far the wackiest concept of recording I read in some time, but it sounds great. The music is actually quite mellow. The noise of Vomir, transformed through the body, sounds far away, remote and utterly mysterious. Like a plane engine recorded by microphone that is below a couple of cushions, along with these mysterious cracks and hisses (probably the tape that is used to stick the speakers to the body); the latter a bit like long wave sounds. This has perhaps the same monotony as the harsh wall music by Vomir, and while that has it's qualities, I think I prefer his music to be sounding more alien and strange like it does here on this record. This sounds truly like something you haven't heard before, but that's perhaps also because you realize the recording concept behind it. (FdW) Address: http://www.ogrob.org http://www.decimationsociale.com LARY 7 - THE END OF AN ERA (LP by Fylkingen Records) Perhaps not a very well-known name, this Lary 7, who has been active since the late seventies, and words about his work that pop up are 'alchemy' and 'scientist', and I also read "his work has been described as that of a magician or scientist, not always certain of the outcome, but determined to see it through to its (Il)logical end. Since the late 1970’s he’s been building, soldering, photographing, recording, mixing, filming, playing, recombining, collecting, re-interpreting and creating in order to make something happen", while also running Plastikville Records and Directart Productions, and founder of the Analogue Society. He also plays on some records by the Swans. Already ten years ago, on June 7th 2006 he recorded the music that is now released in this record by Fylkingen (doubling also a place to record and perform). I assume this is a live recording. There is no mentioning of instruments on the cover, but I believe to hear a guitar most of the time, and the howl of feedback. This results in quite some intense music. I was thinking, oh guitar and feedback, amplification and all that, this could perhaps be described as some weirdo blues music, but that's only when Lary 7 makes his guitar howl around. There is also, towards the end of the first side, a more rhythmical twang on the body of the guitar, slow and intense and on the other side some sort of sine wave like rumbles in from the low end. It's here where the guitar entirely disappeared. This side too ends with some more rhythmical approach towards whatever object is played. Everything is quite at the low end of the sound spectrum, giving the whole record quite a hermetically closed appeal. This is an obscure yet intense record. (FdW) Address: http://www.fylkingen.se NURSE WITH WOUND/CHARLES-LOUIS PHILIPPE - FAITS DIVERS (3"CD/book by Lenka Lente) Lenka Lente is a French publishing house, releasing small booklet that fit in your pocket (10x15,5 cm, around 40 tot 50 pages each) and which always come with a 3"CD release. It is perhaps a pity that many of these small books are in the French language, which seems to me a restriction for a more a more international audience. Here we have eight small texts by one Charles-Louis Philippe (1874-1909), of whom I never heard and upon checking on wikipedia, I have no idea what kind of style he used for his writing, except that he came from a very poor background. My knowledge of the French language is sadly too limited to understand what it says. The music here is by Nurse With Wound, who appears on Lenka Lente for the third time, but this time with an entirely new piece. Here the nurses on duty are Steve Stapleton (head nurse) and Brain Conniffe, who create a fifteen-minute piece of music of a more ambient nature. I have no idea how this was made. My thoughts went out to heavily processed feedback that takes away all the edge of loudness and makes this into a beautiful, sustaining piece of music. It could very well be that I'm all-wrong here and there is the bowing of a bunch of strings. Somewhere post six minutes the sounds changes a bit to what seems to be a bunch of flutes and the vague, far away, watery sounds of drums, before returning to a more ambient passage, fading slowly out towards the end. Quite a melancholic piece of music, which works well on this grey and rainy day. Time for some contemplation. (FdW) Address: http://www.lenkalente.com VIRTARANTA OKUDA BERGER TRIO - LIVE @ ROJISCE (CDR by Zvocniprepihi) From the ever-active (so it seems at least) Jaka Berger (prepared drum set) we know he's active inside the world of improvisation, but this is the first example I hear from that. The recording he made with Antti Virtaranta (double bass) and Rieko Okuda (viola, voice) was recorded in June 2015 in a swimming pool in Rojisce, Vrhnika, which is in Slovenia, just in case if you were wondering. I don't think I heard of his compadres before. Both of them have a background in improvised music as well as playing solo music. The piece lasts just over thirty minutes. 'Any sound can be taken and manipulated to create the compositions. The focus of the group lies in its role-less performance where every musician is responsible for rhythm, harmony and melody', they tell us and this trio does something that I found pretty interesting. On a very few instances this is quite (free) jazz like and Okuda's voice sings like they do in modern classical music, but both of these is not what attracted me to this music. It's the quite minimalist approach to sounds that they have. For extensive parts of this they repeat small phrases and rhythms, while slowly changing what they are doing. Especially the first ten minutes are really great, with that contemplative sound they have. The recording is made close by, so all the instruments/ sounds appear to be in your face. Overall I though this was pretty good release. (FdW) Address: http://www.zvocniprepihi.bandcamp.com SHO SHIN DUO – FREE THE CAT (CDR by Setola Di Maiale) Sho Shin is term from Zen Buddhism meaning ‘beginner’s mind’. Riccardo La Foresta and Riccardo Marogna choose it as the name for their duo work. Marogna plays Bb clarinet, bass clarinet and electronics. La Foresta drums and percussions. An explosive duo. This one rocks, and even swings. That is something I don’t often say of free improvised music. But in this case, it is exactly what is happening. Very enjoyable, spirited and inspired battles of free improvised music. A bit about their backgrounds: Marogna is an improviser and composer with an interest for electronics. Het studied at the prestigious IRCAM. He leads his ensemble Oktopus Connection that also has a record out on Setola di Maiale. He is also part of Aire, an avant-jazz quartet and Schrödinger’s Cat. La Foresta is part of the Joseph Circelli Vinkel Trio from the Bologna-area. La Foresta proves himself as a percussionist with many ideas in this collaboration with Marogna. Many different patterns, colours and sounds come out of his hands. Marogna is an equally capable musician. In each of the eleven tracks they develop their ideas in a different direction, And always in a passionate and lively performance. (DM) Address: http://www.setoladimaiale.nl JAMIE DROUIN - ATTRACTION (CDR by Rhizome.s) DOMINIC LASH WITH PATRICK FARMER AND TIM FEENEY - PERFORMANCE (CDR by Rhizome.s) Of these two I started with the one by Jamie Drouin, who hails from Canada and is sometimes a member of D.O.R. (see for instance Vital Weekly 829 and 942). 'Attraction' is a pretty radical work and the cover says it's 'intended for repeat playback in a room with two speakers positioned at least 5 feet (1,5 meters) apart. Not suitable for headphones', so that's a set- up I have anyway at home. The music appears to be very soft, consisting of sine waves and with a strict left/right separation, so at times the left channel is silent and the music is in the right channel, or vice versa, with a small overlay from time to time. And then, at one point, both left and right at the same time. All of these small changes one doesn't hear too well, because everything moves around very subtly and since these are sine waves one doesn't tend to play it at a very loud volume (at least I don't), which makes this work flow rather graciously through (your) space. It intends to fill up your room in a gentle way and as such it succeeds very well. I had this on repeat for a while, maybe three full runs, while being immersed in reading on a quiet Sunday afternoon. The other new release is by Dominic Lash, who is present on both pieces, and on one he plays with Patrick Farmer and on the other with Tim Feeney. The piece is a composition by Manfred Werder (of the Wandelweiser group of composers) and recorded using mobile phones and sine tones. It lasts almost forty-five minutes and sounds like a bunch of sea waves we are hearing with very occasionally something that sounds like a sine wave popping it's head out of the sea. This is not a very quiet piece, as one would perhaps expect from a Wandelweiser composer, but it's also a bit too minimal for my taste. The other piece they play is 'Overlay (1) and (2)' composed by James Saunders and Feeney plays bass drum and Lash plays double bass. This piece lasts thirty-three minutes and is very slow and very dark. The bass drum plays a slow thud, rather than a fixed beat, a dark rumble. At the same time Lash plays something equally vague on his double bass and the whole thing is perhaps as minimal as the Werder composition, but whereas I though that one was all right but not great, I think this piece is really great. Very intense and very spooky, making your environment shuffle and burst. (FdW) Address: http://rhizome-s.blogspot.com GOH LEE KWANG - RADIO STATION EXP (3"CDR by 1000Füssler) SIMON WHETHAM - CONTRIVANCE (3"CDR by 1000Füssler) DIATRIBE & CHRISTIAN ALVEAR - ROSHAMBO (TRIO) (3"CDR by 1000Füssler) YAN JUN - ON 3 PIPES (3"CDR by 1000Füssler) Of the four new releases by 1000Füssler, three have just one piece, but all four seem to be of a more conceptual nature. The first one I heard was by Goh Lee Kwang (whose family is Goh) and who is a both active as a musician of improvised music, as well as the label boss of Herbal International. His twenty-minute piece is has 'rain' as it's sound source, and it was pouring down in Kuala Lumpur, where Goh lives. This recording is being fed through something that changes the recording mildly; this might be guitar effects for all I know. It has a strange meditative feeling, but at one point the recording burst out of control and turns out to be all noise like, but it lasts for about two minutes. I thought this piece was all right; nothing too great or spectacular or strange. A pretty straightforward piece of music. Simon Whetham is also quite active when it comes to playing around with laptops and field recordings and he has releases on Entr'acte, Filament Recordings, Gruenrekorder, Lens Records, Mystery Sea, Unfathomless, 3Leaves, Monochrome Vision, Auf Abwegen and Cronica. His 'Contrivance' was recorded using his 'Found Sound Materials' installation in Daejeon in Korea, and if I understood correctly it is a darkened stairwell that 'leads downward into the bowels of the building, where rumbles and screeches tumble and collide. Detritus from the streets sits in corners and lines the walls, vibrating with echoes of activity. Instances trapped within glass and metal surround the listener, triggered by motion or occurring according to some other plan', which may not be entirely clear in relation to what we are hearing, which sounds indeed like a metallic stairwell, and detritus falling down. Most of the time this sounds pretty far away but in a few instances it is actually very close by and which delivers a lot of tension. It sounds like metal on metal with lots of rubbing and scratching. The overall dynamics of the piece certainly add to this tension; most of the time it is very quiet and sounds remain at the very low end of the recording (volume-wise) and together this makes up a really great piece, one that has a great care for detail. Diatribes is a duo from Geneva of Cyril Bondi (percussions, objects) and D'incise (laptop), who released a great record, 'Great Stone/Blood Dunza' (see Vital Weekly 978) but also various other works. Here they team up with Christian Alvear from Chile, who plays guitar and together they perform a piece that Diatribes previously released, on 'A New Castle' (see Vital Weekly 954), now played in a trio setting which some excellent results. In this piece they play a small curve, built from the rumble of an object over the one or two drums skins, guided by what could be sine waves or drone like sounds by D'Incise and now also guitar overtones and perhaps some mild drumming now and then on the body of the guitar. None of these curves are the same, which is of course the intention of this piece. Maybe on the surface they might seem the same, but upon close listening you will notice they aren't. This is surely one hell of a meditative release, which slowly unfolds beauty upon beauty. Excellent release! Despite the fact that Yan Jun toured a couple of times in The Netherlands, I missed out on any of these concerts. He hails from China, based in Beijing and his work deals with improvised music, field recordings and such like. The latter is the case with the two pieces on 'On 3 Pipes'. He recorded three water pipes, one at home and one at The Shop, in Beijing. In the first piece the two pipes are separated, one in the left channel and one in the right channel. 'Both tracks were heavily modified during the mastering process. The original noises contain strong noises from the recording equipment. Especially the right channel of track 1', is mentioned on the information. If these are two pipes that were recorded independently from each other than they have some curious coordinated feeling. It's buzzing and dripping throughout. The other piece, at fourteen minutes almost twice as long, is also quite a conceptual piece, which is not always sustaining but rather starts and stops, bouncing between these heavily amplified recording versus the nearly inaudible sounds of the same material. Over the course of the piece the silent bits are more extended and the louder bits get smaller and smaller. Not bad but perhaps a tad too conceptual for my taste. (FdW) Address: http://www.1000fussler.com RAY SANDS - ESCALATOR ATTENDANT (3"CDR by Ceil) Three weeks ago we had The Sand Rays, which cover read that this was made by 'Jim The Younger', who, in a previous carnation was Jim DeJong, also know as The Infant Cycle, but the short note that came with this says 'nothing to do with The Infant Cycle', and I wondered why, but this new release, now by Ray Sands, it says 'produced by Jim The Elder' and 'nothing to do with The Sand Rays' it makes more sense. It also that it was recorded at 'Echo Place'. Just the other day I was playing some old cassettes by Comando Bruno, the musical project of Rafael Flores, who also used extensively various delay units to manipulate his sound material, and I was reminded of that when playing this music. Again, like the previous, entirely not connected release, 'not a 7"…' but with two pieces that could have been on a 7". It is not easy to say what is fed into those delay units, but my guess would be some kind of acoustic sounds, which we are no longer able to identify, especially in the first. In the second piece, 'That Blurry Tunnel There', the source might be more of a field recording nature - the hollow sound of that blurry tunnel there, in the mist. Changes in both pieces are quite minimal and take some time to show development. The title piece is a stuttering piece of musique concrete being looped and delayed, while the other one is a fine take on ambient music. I am not sure if a 7" would sell well, and I would love to have 3"CDR with more than thirteen minutes of music, but I guess you can't have it all. (FdW) Address: none given, none found BEBE ET LULU - UN HYDROLAT LACRYMAL (cassette by Z6 Records) Ever since this package landed on my desk it was met with some degree of disgust by everybone who walked in and saw it. This cassette is packed in plastic chicken, which looks and feels dirty. But a strange packaging for cassettes, in the 80s one of the things that attracted more attention than the music, is not very common these days (or perhaps I just don't see them). That perhaps fits the idea of the music very well; also a bit dirty. Bebe is Bebe Beliz (also known as the singer from no wave group Sweat Tongue) and Lulu is Lukas Simonis, alround guitar, composer, improviser and god knows what else from Rotterdam (try and meet someone from Rotterdam who hasn't played with him is impossible). Lyrics are sung in both English and Turkish (the language of miss Beliz) and the music is best described as improvisations on the catalogue of blues. Lulu plays his guitar, makes it sweep and howl and has a fine, brittle distortion going on the amplifier. It's just that: a guitar and amplification and Bebe's voice singing love songs, heartfelt outpourings of the soul, bending her voice, but this all leads to quite an orchestral sound. Perhaps that's due to the more or less improvised character of the music, Lulu with his odd techniques in approaching the guitar and Bebe with her many vocal variations. It's not as far out as what she does with Sweat Tongue. This all stays more in a field of music that one can relate too. Here it goes from introspective tunes such as 'Scarabee 2.0' to the heavy wailings of 'Jeezy D', or even a more pop-like tune as 'Dustbowl In Yr Hole', with a great coherent bass guitar part underneath. This is some excellent music that may perhaps be a bit out of place in the world of the Weekly, but I found it most enjoyable. (FdW) Address: http://z6rec |