number 1053
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week 42 ---------------------
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TOMOTSUGU NAKAMURA - AN OPENED BOOK IN THE DARK (CD by Kaico) * FEDERICO DURAND - JARDIN DE INVIERNO (CD by Spekk) * RSS BOYS & VENTOLIN - THE GAME YS ROTTIN (CD by Mik Musik/Bdta) STROM - STROM (CD by NurNichtNur) * VETROPACO (CD by Silentes) * MARK VERNON - LEND AN EAR, LEAVE A WORD. AUDIO ARCHEOLOGY SERIES VOL. 1: LISBON (LP by Kye) * VAPOR LANES - HIERATIC TEEN (LP by Usonian) * TEXT-SOUND COMPOSITIONS 8 (compilation LP by Fylkingen Records) LARS AKERLUND/ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI (split LP by Fylkingen Records) MICRO_PENIS - SCHLIM (LP by Doubtful Sounds) DOC WÖR MIRRAN - TAPE HISSED (HISTORICAL OBSCURITY VOLUME 2) (CDR by Miss Management) * DOC WÖR MIRRAN - CONFUSION ROCKS (CDR by Miss Management) * JOSEPH B. RAIMOND - BLOOD PORTRAITS (book by Mirran Thought) JOSEPH B. RAIMOND - ART PHAGS (book by Mirran Thought) LIVING EARTH, FIELD NOTES FROM THE DARK ECOLOGY PROJECT 2014-2016 (book by Sonic Acts Press) ANGUS CARLYLE - IN THE SHADOW OF THE SILENT MOUNTAIN (book by Gruenrekorder) * BRUITAL ORGASME - METHODOLOGIE CONTEXTUELLE (cassette by Sincope) * OTTAVEN - SEQUENZE PER RAFFIGURAZIONI MENTALI #1 (cassette by Sincope) * FFFF (double cassette compilation by Magnetic Purely) TOMOTSUGU NAKAMURA - AN OPENED BOOK IN THE DARK (CD by Kaico) Following 'Soundium', his second release (see Vital Weekly 924), Tomotsugu Nakamura, who is also is also one half of Suisen with Daren McClure, now releases his third CD 'An Opened Book In The Dark'. The label informs us that this new album is both an evolution as well as a 'return to the source' themed album, with Nakamura using 'fragmental acoustic tones', which is the evolution side, and 'his electronic sound that he has been pursuing since his second album', I guess that makes up the return to the source. That said, I must admit I think Nakamura explores the path he already choose further and as such the differences might be in the details; on a microscopic level that is. The cutting, chopping, sampling, slicing of guitar like sounds, transformed with granular synthesis from the good ol' max msp is something that we have been hearing since Oval went ambient. Is that a bad thing? Of course it is not. People have been playing the guitar since a long time, and usually with six strings, strumming chords and whatever they are called. So to do what Oval did, and do that in a somewhat more ambient texture, is absolutely fine with me. Maybe at fifty-one minutes I found this be a bit too long, as towards the end I had the feeling Nakamura was a bit on a repeat mission. I enjoyed the ambience, the melodic touch, the fact that one can recognize a guitar, occasionally, in here, but a bit more variation, versus lesser pieces would have been a better idea, in my opinion. (FdW) ––– Address: http://kaicojapan.tumblr.com FEDERICO DURAND - JARDIN DE INVIERNO (CD by Spekk) With a somewhat colder Autumn day ahead it is perhaps bit early for 'winter garden', as the title translates of this new release by Argentinean's Federico Duran, who, as we noted before, is 'big in Japan', but via liner notes in Spanish, Japanese and English aims for world domination. Like before he lists a whole bunch of equipment and sources on the cover, from acoustic guitar, analogue synthesizer, tape-loops, Sony TCM-200DV, EHX-2880, pocket camera microphone, music boxes, electric piano, El Capistan, Fostex X-18, answering machine cassettes, tape delay, contact & condenser microphones and little objects; I would say, especially little objects are in his favour here, as Durand plays quiet music. That of course we knew already from his previous releases (see Vital Weekly 1015, 995, 952, 927 or 734 for instance), but on this new one he seems to be getting quieter than before, almost working towards the level of not being audible at all. I checked the volume levels and found them to be what I always use for listening to music, so it must be Durand who goes near silent here. Apparently this album was made in a cold old house in the mountains in Argentina and much of this was recorded in one take without much editing or mixing, which I found not easy to believe, but then I could also imagine Durand sitting on the floor, armed with his toys (and this time I mean literally toys to produce sound) and with microphones set up with some distance from either the action or the speakers, which makes it possible for him to get that somewhat distant sound. And maybe this is recorded straight on to cassette? Judging by some of the hiss on several of these pieces this might very well the case. Normally one would try to get rid of such unwanted sounds, in this release I must admit it sounds really lovely, especially because it doesn't appear in all the pieces; that would have been a bit tiresome I would think. In the world of 'small sounds and melodies' Federico Durand is a well- established name and one knows what to expect, even if it is this time a bit quieter. That is what makes this something a bit different from his previous releases, but otherwise you would know what to expect. Not the next big leap but with this album Duran is refined the trick of his trade. (FdW) ––– Address: http://spekk.net RSS BOYS & VENTOLIN - THE GAME YS ROTTIN (CD by Mik Musik/Bdta) This actually not really a collaboration release, so perhaps the sign '&' should be released with '/', but then maybe this is also not really a split release of some kind. Confusing? Perhaps it is indeed. We have here two pieces by Polish RSS Boys and three by Czech musician Ventolin (maybe named after the Aphex Twin song?) and each of them doing a remix of the other. But none of this in any logical order, so we have RSS Boys, Ventolin, Ventolin remixed by RSS Boys, Ventolin, RSS Boys, Ventolin and RSS Boys remixed by Ventolin. Does it make any difference you wonder? Can you hear all of this in the music? No you don't, I think, but that might either be just me not knowing the finer details of techno music or maybe I got it right, I do know and it doesn't make a difference. Who can tell? The seven pieces on this album are actually long, and the whole thing lasts over one hour, and the result are seven excellent pieces of dance music, produced with great care and style. It is a bit raw but that's how I like them best. Raw, but not something that goes on and on forever; both RSS Boys and Ventolin know when it is time to stop. Inspired by techno, acid and electro and armed with some analogue gear these two acts present a very much in your face approach when it comes to production. I can very much see how this would sound in concert: great! I was reminded of indeed the Aphex Twin, but also of Unit Moebius or the whole Bunker Records sound from the nineties. No doubt others will have different connections. It is perhaps all a bit old school, this music, but while I reading Peter Hook's new book on his days with New Order, and this release on repeat for a while, it didn't matter. I had a most enjoyable afternoon. It's a pity I rarely dance; how would that work out with this music? I leave that up to your imagination. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.mikmusik.org/musik/ STROM - STROM (CD by NurNichtNur) The German word for electricity is 'Strom' and it's also the name of a duo of Angelika Sheridan, who plays bass flute and a normal flute and Frank Niehusmann on laptop and controllers. The latter has had a bunch of solo releases reviewed in Vital Weekly, but it seems I never heard of Sheridan before. This is the world of hardcore improvisation, which is not to say that this is very loud or noisy, but it deals very much interaction between both players, merging two quite different instruments (or three if you count Sheridan's voice, which she uses from time to time, as a third) together and to those who are not well versed in this kind of music it could easily seem there is no relation at all, but upon closer inspection one can hear that there is much connection between the way both of them play their instruments. There is much use of microscopic small sounds here, with a constant shifts moving back and forth, on both instruments, in which one, as expected can hear the laptop 'winning' from the flutes, when it comes to both creating and controlling chaos. On very few occasions this duo stretches out sounds and things go into a gradually slower fashion, but it seems they prefer their own inflicted random sound approach. This music owes as much to the world of free improvised jazz, especially the playing of the flute, as well as live electronic music, picking, I assume, the sound of flute and going for some real-time transformations. It makes up for some pretty vibrant music, one that is not always easy to grasp, but certainly in a smaller doses is most enjoyable. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.nurnichtnur.com VETROPACO (CD by Silentes) This is a new duo by veteran electronic artist Gianluca Favaron, who we know as working with Corrado Altieri, Stefano Gentile, Deison, or groups as Lasik Surgery, Maribor, Under The Snow and Zbeen and solo, and who adds a new duo to his list of collaborations, Vetropaca, and this time it is with Andrea Belluci, who we know best as Red Sector A, even when we only reviewed one release before, see Vital Weekly 928. Both artists get credit for electronics, and Bellucci also for programming. Unlike Favaron, but very much like Bellucci this deals with the art of dance music, and the seven pieces on this release are filled with the dark techno tunes, full of rhythm, lots of sound effects and some level of alienation, especially when it comes to strange sounds used in intros and outros; maybe this was Favaron's expertise, I wondered. Bellucci worked with Clock DVA before and some of this music reminded me of the mid-90s incarnation of that band, along with the music released by Minus Habens in the same period. This might be music that would do well on a dance floor, which is dimly lit, the dark wave posse perhaps, but this is also something that is most enjoyable at home. Like I noted with the release by Red Sector A this is not the kind of music that I play a lot, and back in the mid-nineties wasn't too blown away by, but now, some twenty years later, it is something that I find quite enjoyable. Music that you can play while dusting around the house, reading a book (armchair techno is a term that someone coined in those old days, but one that never caught on), riding a bike, or perhaps move along on the dance floor. Maybe this was called Intelligent Dance Music at one point, especially when the rhythms get a bit complex, or even drum & bass like in 'Lava'; this is not really not really a 2016 dance release, but one that knows it's classic sound best and without making a straight forward copy emulates the best of various dance music from many years ago, into a hybrid of it's own. (FdW) ––– Address: http://store.silentes.it MARK VERNON - LEND AN EAR, LEAVE A WORD. AUDIO ARCHEOLOGY SERIES VOL. 1: LISBON (LP by Kye) It's been a while since we last from Mark Vernon, he who loves field recordings, radio, hörspiel, and drama as well as sound art. That was 'Things That Were Missed In The Clamour For Calm' (Vital Weekly 971) but now he returns with the first volume of 'Lend An Ear, Leave A Word', which is all about audio archaeology and Vernon (erstwhile of Hassle Hound and Vernon & Burns) went down the flea market of the Alfarma district, that is part of Lisbon in case you were wondering, to buy a whole bunch reel-to-reel tapes, micro-cassettes and Dictaphones at the Feira de Ladra market. A great audio treasure that is as it presents the listener with a whole bunch of private recordings, from answerphone messages, baby recordings, accordion playing or someone waiting in a car. Vernon selected these sounds and cut them along with field recordings he made himself. Those include peacocks, a sun lotion dispenser, a creaky tap, street noise, air ventilation unit and, yummy, the pouring of sparkling wine. None of this is presented 'as is', it seems to me, but it comes to you as two pieces of about twenty minutes each audio story, just you would expect Mark Vernon (providing you know his music as well as I do) to present these things, even when it is clearly cut into separate pieces; it works best when experienced as a forty minute story. It probably is not very easy to recognize Lisbon in here (I have only been there once), or maybe any city at all, but then it works as an audio tour all the better. By overlaying various sounds, field recordings and spoken word, Vernon creates a world of his own. The music he found on this tapes is cleverly used in the background and make things a bit more musical; sometimes he creates a loop of say a piano sound, then takes the sound of people speaking in a dark alley and adds a bit of electronics (in 'Print- through (May All Your Prayers Be Answered)' that is), and it much more a piece of music than some field recordings stuck together for dramatic purposes. This easily bridges that world of field recordings with the world of 'music', even when one is prepared to see one thing as part of the other. In his pieces Vernon creates something that is aiming for something much more musical and less sound art like. This might be one of the best works I heard from him so far. The level of story telling, interaction and creative use of his sound material is very high here. I wonder what will come next from him. (FdW) ––– Address: http://kyerecords.blogspot.com VAPOR LANES - HIERATIC TEEN (LP by Usonian) Behind Vapor Lanes we find one A. Karuna, who is originally from Chicago, but these days lives in Oakland. He is trained as a percussion player but growing up he also heard drones in Hindu temples and perhaps that's what inspired him for his Vapor Lanes project, although not strictly drone based. He played the drums and electronics in a 9-piece post rock band, but these days prefers to work all alone. Whatever he lays his hand upon, he will use. He doesn't mind if his electronics are analogue, digital, old synthesizers, software or modular. Now that's what I like. There is no limit. So, how does it work out? Hard to say actually. This is not your usual drone music, but rather someone who goes wild over the use of electronics, and finds great pleasure in playing around with many of these. There is certainly something in here that one could label as 'improvisation', in the way he approaches his various apparatus but also in the way he does his mixes. Playing around with sounds within a given time frame, leave in what others would perhaps call 'mistakes' and then putting all of this together via a process of blind mixing (I am merely guessing here). That is a most daring approach of which the result is of course not easy to predict. The five pieces on the record (six if you buy the download) are much more experiments in electronic sound and less refined drone music pieces, which of course is all the better, even when not all of these pieces work very well. 'Locating' and 'Teen', the two pieces that make up the second side, are both a bit long for what they actually have sound information wise. It could have been a bit shorter and as a result it would have been a bit stronger. But having said that, who does a full length LP of the more experimental electronics, combining the softer edges of noise and the daring corners of drones these days? Who is willing to take risks? Surely Vapor Lanes does take risks and you should do to. (FdW) ––– Address: http://usonian.bandcamp.com TEXT-SOUND COMPOSITIONS 8 (compilation LP by Fylkingen Records) LARS AKERLUND/ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI (split LP by Fylkingen Records) This looked like a record I saw before, or perhaps, rather the title sounded very familiar. For one Fylkingen have a bunch more titles with years mentioned in the titles but indeed there is also various other releases named 'Text-Sound Compositions', in fact, so I learned by looking at Discogs, there have been seven previous volumes, covering recordings made between 1968 and 1970, when there was an annual festival of the same name. However the festival continued until 1974, but there we no funds to produce more albums. Now, with the start of the 8th volume, Fylkingen will release one more for every year the festival existed, until they have 11 of them. They are looking for pieces to release that are not released before, so it excludes luminaries as Henri Chopin, Sten Henson and Ake Hodell. On 'Text Sound Compositions 8' we find four composers, among two from the Netherlands. The LP starts out with a piece by Bengt Emil Johnson, who uses the sound of crowds, expressing cheer or discontent, and from all sorts of languages. The piece is recorded on to four tracks and then mixed down to two. It's not easy to recognize any voice in here, but it makes for some powerful tape-collage of found sound. Gust Gils is the first Belgian-Dutch poet who is on here and he too made a four-track piece, of him talking, sometimes on all four channels at the same time, and splitting it very much in left and right channels. Whispering, shouting, speaking, humming; it all has to do with impressions of his visit to previous text-sound festivals. It is a pretty straight forward text-sound piece, but one that works quite well. On the other side we find Herman Damen, also from The Netherlands, with a short piece called 'Magic', which is one of his 'verbosonies', 'a multi-track improvisation on a planned scheme with the sound syllables: b(e), ba, a, bra, br, ka', and sounds very like a Jaap Blonk piece. Short, rhythmic and powerful. Bob Cobbing is also on the second side with a longer piece, recorded in Stockholm (like Johnson's piece; the other two were produced in Hilversum, The Netherlands). His piece is quite abstract and more along the lines, so it seems to me, of the work of Henri Chopin, of voice material taped onto a four track machine, but using the various speed options such machines have and it has a more or less improvised feel, with spaced voice material, speed-up sound material and in general not something that makes any sense, when it comes to text itself. No Nobel prizes for these poet-musicians, and that's too bad. The other new release by Fylkingen Records is a split record by Zbigniew Karkowski and Lars Akerlund, who started working together in the 1980s, with projects like P.I.T.T. And The Dreamers and Onge-4-x, then in the 90s on an opera project around The Idiot (that's the Dostoyevsky play, not the Iggy album) and with Jean-Louis Huhta as Mental Hackers, in 2012 and 2013. As you know Karkowski died in 2013, two months after he was diagnosed with cancer. The last work he was working on was this split LP with Lars Akerlund. Karkowski's piece is called 'Radio Enemy' and is a noisy beast, and that's probably no surprise. It's not, however, one of those over the top Merzbowian blasts of noise, but it opens up with a voice fed through an amount of distortion, but it has still a commanding, strong presence. It then moves to a repeating, high-pitched sound to which a slowed down voice is added. Listening to this right after the 'Text Sound' compilation, it makes perfect sense; Karkowski is here updating the notion of voice/text within the realm of some highly powerful music. Even if noise can be a bit much for you, I recommend this piece for you. This is the variation of noise that is loud but not for the sake of loudness. Akerlund on the other side has no text, or at least nothing that we can see as such, and starts out with noise that would suit Karkowski pretty well, but his piece 'Aware Not Aware' moves over a much more dynamic range. The noise is powerful and short and through the twenty-three minutes of this piece Akerlund moves from the very quiet to the reasonable loudness. His build up is slow, minimal and yet dramatic. It is hard to say if these tools are all analogue and modular or much more part of the world of software. Somehow I think the latter. His piece is quite intense; blocks of heavily treated sounds and it works really well as a piece of modern musique concrete. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.fylkingen.se/ MICRO_PENIS - SCHLIM (LP by Doubtful Sounds) With the release of 'Schlim', Micro_Penis concludes their trilogy of albums, which started with a self-titled LP (Vital Weekly 696) and then 'Tolvek' (Vital Weekly 802). I admit I didn't understand the first album, and found it not easy to place anywhere, but with their second album I understood perhaps a little better. Forget all the 'crazy stories' about members in mental hospitals and Zen temples, covering themselves with stuff from garbage bins, and concentrate on what is on offer, and that's the music. The four members, Heyer, Kittel, Ogrob and Spenlehauer, are no doubt non- musicians in the truest sense of the word, but that having said that I think they pretty much know what they are doing. They swap their instruments (none listed on the cover) on all tracks, and keep at them for the duration of the track. There is the usual vocal abuse, a bit of noise, improvised guitar bits, the demented rock approach if you will. It all goes down to tape and then gets mixed, and there it gets interesting; the studio-as-instrument is of course nothing new but Micro_Penis use the studio to great effect here and there must have been some tinkering in getting this mix down. I somehow don't think that is the work of some deranged mental patients who escaped the asylum. It all reminded me of a bit of Nurse With Wound layering tons of weirdness on a bunch of tracks in the studio and then seeking out the right balance between those tracks in order to build an intense composition. Take the longest piece, 'Repliques', which is a very low and moody piece of electronics and you know this was done by people who know what they are doing, despite more screaming, noisy bits such as 'Kommandant' or 'U-Boat Le Periscope Aveugle'. This is surely their best album so far. If this is the end of their trilogy, I wonder what comes next for them. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.doubtfulsounds.info DOC WÖR MIRRAN - TAPE HISSED (HISTORICAL OBSCURITY VOLUME 2) (CDR by Miss Management) DOC WÖR MIRRAN - CONFUSION ROCKS (CDR by Miss Management) JOSEPH B. RAIMOND - BLOOD PORTRAITS (book by Mirran Thought) JOSEPH B. RAIMOND - ART PHAGS (book by Mirran Thought) From the world of the musical chameleon that we call Doc Wör Mirran here comes two new releases and two new books, and once again it couldn't be much different from the previous releases. In the first one, 'Tape Hissed (Historical Obscurity Volume 2)' that even is inside the space of one song, and that times ten. Here we have an expanded line-up, listing no less than twenty-one players (lots of people you expect on a Doc release, but also including Jello Biafra, also no stranger, but always good to see him), with recordings from 1993 and 1993, remixed from 2002 to 2009. It may or may not be part with a cassette, as the cover lists a side 1 and 2 for a tape (or perhaps that refers to an older tape release), and this, the CDR, is side 3. But then, it lists nine songs and the release has ten, so there you go (and then the other new release is called 'Confusion Rocks'). Confusion is also part and parcel of the music itself, I would think, as what the hell is it that I am hearing? Or at least that's what I thought a couple of times when I was playing this. There is quite a bit of noise in here, that much is sure, there are plenty of guitars, but also a drum machine, bass guitar and guitar playing 'Jazz My Azz'; much of this comes from the great body of cassette work Doc Wör Mirran released in the past (and this being their 141st release), so some of it sounds familiar (and no, I haven't heard all of they releases), but then it is all a bit stranger, wackier, or perhaps more remixed? It is all not very consistent in terms of well-defined musical categories, but no doubt that is something that the band actively seeks out. It is all quite gritty and alien, perhaps like some kind of tortured krautrock by mentally unstable musicians, and at that I thought this was a most enjoyable release; top heavy but very pleasant. On 'Confusion Rocks' Stefan Schweiger plays drums, while Phil Abendroth supplied graphics, so the one guy that is the main member of Doc Wör Mirran handles guitar, keyboards, bass and graphics ever since the group started, and that is mister Joseph B. Raimond. Here too Raimond sets out for some fine confusion, and maybe this the counterpart of the 'Tape Hissed' release. Here too Raimond plays some krautrock infested guitar music, with some endless solos, but the background is less noise, alien and/or gritty. Lots of synthesizer though, plenty of electronics and the drums being all around nicely stomping ground. Perhaps, so I was thinking, this sounded all very retro, very seventies perhaps, save for the more electronic drums of '!' and 'As The Days Get Shorter', which sounded a bit nineties like (think To Rococo Rot), and not all-around my cup of tea, but still a most enjoyable release. With the musical antenna of this band so wide it is not easy to like 'm all. For the two books I dug out my mantra "As much as I would love to do so, reviewing anything else than music is really a hard task. That 'else' includes video art, literature, poetry, sculptures or art-objects", and while I know Joseph B. Raimond as someone who loves to do music (which I am more than happy to write about), he also creates drawings and poetry, both subjects of his books. 'Art Phags' is something he created in the last two months of 2014 and it is a series of two hundred small black ink drawings. "The pages of this book represent what I think are the best of them", while 'Blood Portraits' is sub-titled 'Western Haiku Vol. 6', and has no cover text, but these pieces were written in 2010 and 2011, dedicated (like his work to Frank Abendroth, an early, deceased member of the group) and Cynthia Lennon, John's first wife who died earlier this year. The book of naive drawings didn't mean much to me, but the haiku's I thought were quite nice, which are funny, depressed, witty and romantic. "the suicide victim knew/Loneliness can be an infinite fall/Whereas the building is a short fall", that kind of thing. This one of those books you pick up, read a few, and put away for the day, which I can dig. This one I enjoyed quite a bit. What else can I say about things I have no idea about? (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.dwmirran.de LIVING EARTH, FIELD NOTES FROM THE DARK ECOLOGY PROJECT 2014-2016 (book by Sonic Acts Press) Sonic Acts has been taken a hike (or several) over the last three years. In close collaboration with Norwegian curator Hilde Methi, the organization (best known perhaps for the massive multi-day conference and concerts in a festival setting) went to the uttermost northern regions of Europe, inviting artists, researchers and thinkers along for the trip. Kirkenes and Svanvik, Nikel and Zapolyarny or Murmansk are a long way from what we here in 'crowded Holland' would consider the inhabited or habitable world. All the activities these excursions yielded might easily have been lost in location, where there not this catalogue of ideas, conversations, lectures and documen- tations – a collection of field notes. With this book it's possible for those who weren't invited, to be included in elements of the creative focus en force the Dark Ecology project brought to those actively engaged, to a certain extent, at least. As one has come to expect from Sonic Acts the range and scope of ideas, approaches and angles is varied wide and deep. Lectures by Timothy Morton verge on the incomprehensible in terms of density of thought and speed of delivery. In print, his radical criticism of nature as something outside of us, the human being, towards a meshed co-existence of all objects, living and non-living, projects some tangible clues to his philosophy of dark ecology as the weird weirdness. A train of thought too, very much so working towards a notion of a possible exit from what Morton calls “toxic modernity”. Sonic Acts with Methi forced the participants in the project to live and work outside of their comfort zones. Rethinking, reworking, re-searching. Sound walks and concerts were developed and performed on site. Video and photographic works document and elaborate upon aspects of the dark ecology. Architecture and obscure massive financial currents are touched upon. All in all Living Earth presents an atlas of sorts – as a collection of 'maps' of many of the current positions, however continuously in flux – for earth as a living force. Living Earth might be considered a document too to show the world and all the funders included what Sonic Acts and co have been up to – stepping out of the dark. It does strike me as quite odd to program and produce this much of activity for the Sonic Acts-team and the inner core of artists the festival has worked with before (like HC Gilje, BJ Nilsen, Joris Strijbos, Justin Bennett, Espen Sommer Eide, Raviv Ganchrow), without any form of public program, here, in The Netherlands. 'A couple of holidays for the happy few' critics and detractors could very easily state. And not too wrongly. What's the point? What do we see and hear from this? Precious little, even in this book, it has to be said for it's quite a shame the pages remain mute. One can't hear Bennett's work for example. And for BJ Nilsen's compositions (with images by Karl Lemieux) one has to turn to the previous Sonic Acts-book, which include a USB-drive with the audio. In this day and age of digital disclosure and crossmedial opportunities, there's a massive chance not taken to project a more 360-degree overview of the works produced too. The thoughts are there, but the online presen- tation does remain too in-crowd, too much of a family holiday picture album for a vacation you weren't part of in the first place. Exclusiveness is not what this wholly inclusive idea is all about. I mean: Sonic Acts per se is on the more exclusive side of things (i.e. not for everyone, with high standards), but was always about inclusiveness of curious and interested minds with artists, researchers and thinkers. Living Earth builds some bridges, but still remains quite exclusive and per se in-crowd. As a sneak peek behind the scenes of what went on up North Living Earth is a brilliant exposé and exhibition. It's also a reminder and exhibit A in the case of in-crowdedness went one step too far, as far as I am concerned. Put differently: it's due time Sonic Acts delivers the goods and practices what Morton more of less 'preaches' which is this mesh, this holos, this totality – all of us huddled together and warming ourselves, each other above all, to the glimmer and glow of the artistic fires this amazing project has unleashed. Not to worry, for if Living Earth presents one thing, it's making clear that many seeds have been sown. Let's hope the barren lands in the North prove to be fertile. (SSK) ––– Address: http://www.darkecology.net ANGUS CARLYLE - IN THE SHADOW OF THE SILENT MOUNTAIN (book by Gruenrekorder) Well, technically this is listed as a book, well actually two books, but there is also music to hear, which you have to download from the label's website. All of this I would think is some kind of poetry cobbled together through field recordings, words and photography. One book has only words and the other has pictures, and I assume all of this upon a mountain somewhere in Italy. Or not Italy, maybe it's the name of the website that distracts me? Confusing indeed, I must say. I will repeat what I say above, my mantra, "as much as I would love to do so, reviewing anything else than music is really a hard task. That 'else' includes video art, literature, poetry, sculptures or art-objects", and that pretty much sums up what I think of the two booklets, other than the pictures look great, and made me want to go on a mountain trip again, which is in the Netherlands is not an easy option. The words/poetry/literature come in the form of a diary and is 'interesting to read'. The music is all about field recordings, and I assume (once again), from taking a trip up the mountain, capturing the surrounding; church bells, a small creek, cow bells, but as we go higher and higher we hear only ourselves walking up the mountain, microphone in backpack, arriving at a ski-station in 'Ferro Legno' and more water streams. It is not entirely clear if Carlyle uses any editing of processing. In 'Fifty Breaths In The Valley' he surely must have, I was thinking, used a bit of delay and also in some of the other pieces it seems some editing is used. Probably very much like the rest of the package, this is all a bit mysterious and deliberately vague, but I guess that's what makes this quite captivating. You can read, watch and hear while pondering over the question: 'what is this all about?' (FdW) ––– Address: http://montesilenzio.com/ ––– Address: http://gruenrekorder.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-shadow-of-the-silent-mountain BRUITAL ORGASME - METHODOLOGIE CONTEXTUELLE (cassette by Sincope) OTTAVEN - SEQUENZE PER RAFFIGURAZIONI MENTALI #1 (cassette by Sincope) Last year, around this time, I saw a concert by Brussels' Bruital Orgasme, and due to the amount of volume they used it was from some distance. As the name probably implies they are a noise group, and so they are in concert, but I must say that on the two releases I heard by them, I think their noise is actually quite interesting. First there was a cassette in Sincope from Italy (see Vital Weekly 861), who now also release a second one, and a LP by Silken Tofu (Vital Weekly 1007), which was a bit louder. I quite enjoyed their releases, perhaps more than their more single-minded noise approach in concert. There is simply more to enjoy here. Using turntables with and without records, radio, spinning wheel, drills, contact microphones and radio, Bruital Orgasme comes up with quite some intense music, but it is not necessarily music that made without any consideration. I'd say: it is made with a lot of it, actually. The opening minutes of 'Migration' on the first side works up to quite an intense level, but the rest of that piece is very quiet, with some remote turntable action; that is also part of 'Transhumance' on the other side, and the rotating sound of 'object plus stylus' is easy to recognize and somewhat later into the skipping mode, but here too the group know how to build attention as well as a fine level of intensity. It is all based on the repeating sounds of dirty vinyl and objects, and perhaps less fit to be called 'musique concrete', but the bursting electricity made for some fine electro-acoustic music. Repetition is also at the basis of Giovanni Donadini's project Ottaven, who is a 'former member of the band and co-worker as With Love, WW, Lake Dead, Mortal Tape, Magic Towers, Utat and Forum I', none of which I ever heard. It is not easy to guess what he uses, sound wise; I would think there is quite some electronics at play here, but the press text also mentions field recordings, voices and objects. If so, these are transformed quite a bit I think, and fed mainly through some analogue synthesizers, set on circular mission of repetition. The music is more on the same level throughout, more so than the Bruital Orgasm one, and seems to be taking it's cues from the world of old school industrial music. Piercing synth with minimalist rhythm, all fed through some crude sound effects, of which reverb and delay are it's main occupants. You feel trapped inside this massive industrial lot, full on action of conveyer belts, alarm clocks, machines grinding away and everything is closing in on you; you are looking for the way out, but that's not going to happen easily. While I certainly enjoyed the music of Ottaven, I must admit I found more pleasure in the somewhat more complex and worked out compositions of Bruital Orgasm, even when both find inspiration in the world of 80s industrial music. (FdW) ––– Address: http://sincoperec.bandcamp.com/ FFFF (double cassette compilation by Magnetic Purely) Interested to talk about 'green', as in ecological? Here we have two cassettes, in two plastic boxes, paper wrap around, but the total amount of music is ten minutes. Two and half minute per side, and by four different bands, none of which I heard of before. Talk about an economic package! I understand this is a revival of the German label Magnetic Purely. DRNTTCKS, Philipp Bückle, Gora Sou and Yibbon, the latter from Australia and the only non-German band deliver the music. DRNTTCKS have a fine piece of darker electronics, drones and a bit of rhythm, whereas Bückle sounds like a singer-song writer who has just been discovered while singing in a tunnel, and recording was made instantly. Him singing a bit, some electric interference and a slightly reverb in the mix. Most enjoyable actually. Gora Sou goes into the world of synthesizers and quite a bit of delay, all neatly lined up to make fine modulations and ending with a bit of reverb for full dramatic effect, and then it's Yibbon's turn with a dance song, fast, crude, lots of reverb, ending with some noise, and perhaps as a statement it works fine, but what the hell does Yibbon want, I wondered. And that's ten minutes; that could have been the all-classic 7" sampler like the punks did back in the day. I enjoyed all four of these pieces, and I surely wouldn't have minded more minutes per band actually, to get a clearer view of what these bands are all about, because it is not just Yibbon I was wondering about. Maybe a revived label can tell us that in the future? (FdW) ––– Address: http://magnetic-purely.bandcamp.com • Vital Weekly is published by Frans de Waard and submitted for free to anybody with an e-mail address. If you don't wish to receive this, then let us know. Any feedback is welcome <vital@vitalweekly.net>. Forward to your allies. Snail mail: Vital Weekly/Frans de Waard Acaciastraat 11 6521 NE Nijmegen The Netherlands All written by Frans de Waard (FdW), Dolf Mulder (DM) <dolf.mulder@hetnet.nl>, Niels Mark (NM), Jliat (Jliat), Freek Kinkelaar (FK), Jan-Kees Helms (JKH), Michael Tau (MT), Peter Johan Nijland (PJN), Sven Schlijper-Karssenberg (SSK) and others on a less regular basis. 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