WILL LONG – LONG TRAX (2CD by Comatonse Recordings) *
CELER – CALLISTO (CD by Two Acorns) *
GUY KLUCEVSEK – TEETERING ON THE VERGE OF NORMALCY (CD by Starkland)
YIORGIS SAKELLARIOU – SILENTIUM (CD by Pogus) *
THE NEGATIVITY BIAS – WHATEVER YOU WANT (CD by Audiophob) *
SPHERICAL DISRUPTED – PERIAPSIS (CD by Audiophob) *
TORN FROM BEYOND – IF THE VIEW FREEZES (CD by Krater Recordings) *
HIROSHI HASEGAWA/OPENING PERFORMANCE ORCHESTRA – FRACTION
ELEMENTS (CD by Psych KG / E-Klageto)
ANEMONE TUNE/POST SCRIPTUM – LITANIAE MORTUORUM
DISCORDANTES (CD/LP by The Epicurean) *
ERIK GRISWOLD – ECSTATIC DESCENT (CD by Cold Blue Music) *
NICHOLAS CHASE – BHAJAN (CD by Cold Blue Music) *
WINTERBLOOD – CULTI SEGRETI (CD by Frozen Light) *
CHEVAL SOMBRE – IF IT’S YOU (7″ lathe cut by Static Caravan) *
PHILIP SULIDAE – SCENES FROM A DUPLEX (CDR by Hemisphäre) *
HYDRA FEAT. STEREORENT – IMPROVISIONS (CDR by Hazard Records) *
DAVID DIAZ & ANTONIA FUNES – 5GATOS (miniCDR by Hazard Records) *
DEADMAN’S GHOST – HYPOCRITICAL OATH (cassette by Ephem Aural)
KARL FOUSEK – ONE ANOTHER (cassette by Limited Interst)
ANDREY POPOVSKIY – WORKS FOR VOICE RECORDERS 2011, 2016 (cassette
by Spina Records) *
BLANK DISC TRIO/EX YOU (split cassette by Spina Records))
ANDREY SVIBOVITCH/SERGEY VANYSHEV (split cassette by Spina Records)
WILL LONG – LONG TRAX (2CD by Comatonse Recordings)
CELER – CALLISTO (CD by Two Acorns)
“Don’t know if you’d be into this one, but I’m sending just in case”, Will Long writes in a small note
and I was already thinking; what the hell is a producer of ambient music doing on a dance label such
as Comatonse Recordings, the label from Terre Thaemlitz? Simply: to make his debut in the world of
deep house. I am of course not sure if Will Long reads any other reviews I do on a weekly basis, or
just flips straight to the ones of his own, but I’d say two things are important to keep in mind; first
that Vital Weekly writes about lots of different and difficult music and secondly any deviation of the
normal routine for any artists has my most welcome interest (even if I may not like it). However,
very few artists deviate and rather release their umpteenth dance/drone/noise record, instead of
doing something different every time. Richard Youngs is my favourite example of someone who
does all sorts of styles, and always gets away with it; he has his fans it seems. So Will Long goes
deep house? How will that go? It goes surprisingly well, I think. That is to say, as far as I can judge
these things. Dance music is a minefield, just like metal music. Before you know it you mention the
wrong category, and everybody will know: that reviewer is fake. Let’s go by what Will Long says and
call this deep house. Each of the fourteen pieces, two and half hours of music, last between nine
and twelve minutes and have that strong thumping beat and big ambient washes of a synthesizer,
and mucho effects. I say strong beat, but the synthesizer is actually more present and as such I
think this music is probably more suited for home listening than on the floor dancing. The rhythm
is quite minimal and once stuck in a groove it will stay there. In every piece there are two or three
breaks and there is throughout a use of samples, mainly from black people; I assume of the ilk of
Jesse Jackson, of whom the extended paper also has large chunks in quotation, along with others.
This is released by Comatonse Recordings after all, so a political edge os never far away. One could
argue that many of the pieces sound alike, with similar synthesizer wash-sounds, similar beat
patterns and identical samples, but for me that added to the conceptual fun of this. Perhaps this
fits the work of Will Long-as-Celer also; here too he is on a repeat mission and for now within the
two discs that span this package, with very similar tunes. I thought it worked very well, but then I
very much enjoy this sort of dance music for the household situations. It worked very well this
whole afternoon reading a not too difficult book and pleasantly gazing outside.
It is perhaps after all of this a bit strange to go from that to this, indeed the umpteenth
album by Celer, recorded by Will Long in 2015 and 2016 and it is all about watching stars at
night. Not in your bright lit cityscape of course, but outside, away from cities, roads, factory
sites and streetlights and just take a look above, to the endless firmament, which invites you
to contemplate about so many things (how big is the universe, who created it, does it ever end;
you know that kind of trivial things when watching something so vast). You may not need any
music, I guess, to watch all of this, but you could play ‘Callisto’, an album of traditional Celer
music; that means one long form piece of highly ambient sounds. Maybe some kind of organ
sounds are processed, stretched out, filtered and coloured with equalization. The waveform of
this piece (opening up this for the podcast in a wave editor) looks very extreme, but it sounds
far from extreme. Au contraire, it is all very subdued actually, exactly as you would expect from
Celer. That can be good, because you know what you get, but it can also be bad, ‘nothing
changed’. You just learned I like a bit of change; it sometimes makes up a better review, when
there is something to tell you don’t know already, as opposed to, ‘yeah we heard this before’ or
‘he’s doing his magic trick again’, but no doubt market forces make that sometimes these things
don’t change easily. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.comatonse.com
––– Address: http://www.thesingularwe.org/twoacorns/
GUY KLUCEVSEK – TEETERING ON THE VERGE OF NORMALCY (CD by Starkland)
I first encountered Klucevsek on a cassette on Zoar, the label of Elliot Sharp, that opened the New
York underground music for me in the 80s. I remember to find it odd to hear polka-related music
coming from downtown. But I instantly liked it. Later I learned about his work with David Garland
for instance, or his cd for Experimental Media. Many cds followed and all have Klucevsek exploring
for the relevance of traditional music from different – often European – cultures in the context of
new music. He also got associated with other accordion players who tried to bridge folk traditions
with new music like Lars Hollmer, Brabo Bibic, a.o. In recent years however I didn’t came across
his name very often, although releases continued through Tzadik, Innova, etc. So it is nice a new
recording by Starkland, who released several albums by Klucevsek in the past (‘Transylvanian
Softwear’ (1999), ‘Free Range Accordion’(2000) and ‘Polka from the Fringe”(2012). Most of
the tracks have Klucevsek in a duo with violinist Todd Reynolds. Other tracks have Klucesvsek
solo or in a trio or quartet line up with piano, voice, bass clarinet, bass guitar, drums. The duets
however with Reynolds make up the nucleus of this recording. Reynolds perfectly accommodates
his playing to the respective musical culture (gypsy, tango, etc.). Always playing with verve. The
closing track ‘For Lars again’ is a tribute for that other accordion player Lars Hollmer of Samla who
sadly died several years ago. Other tracks are dedicated to Kurt Weil, Astor Piazzola and Nino Rota,
and perfectly indicate where to position the music of Klucevsek. This is a very personal release of
heartfelt music, full of elegance. (DM)
Address: http://www.starkland.com
YIORGIS SAKELLARIOU – SILENTIUM (CD by Pogus)
Before Yiorgis Sakellariou was known as Mecha/orga and he had his own label Echo Music, which
lives on in the digital domain, but moving around from Greece, Lithuania and now London, he just
uses his own name and still uses field recordings to create his computer compositions. On
‘Silentium’ he uses the sound of bells and church organs. I am not sure if the average reader of
Vital Weekly goes into a church on a regular basis, to do whatever it is that people do in churches
or simply as a tourist, but churches are quiet places and visitors are asked to be silent. That’s
why I like to visit churches; to enjoy the apparent silence, which is not really silent. The heavy,
old doors, the floors squeaking, and people whispering; there’s always sound and it usually has
a fine resonance in the age old stone building. The title of this work is not about this being a
quiet piece, far from it, but it’s the silence of many, in churches or at a concert of 19th century
classical music, which tradition still lives on. Like so much of the previous work of Yiorgis
Sakellariou it is all about listening and this music requires your full attention. I am assuming
that when recording bells and church organs, Yiorgis Sakellariou also picked up some ‘silence’
from church spaces. His fifty-minute piece is one of those excellent sound excursions that take
the listener through a wide field of sounds and dynamics. It can be very loud, such as the opening
bass tone, but also it reaches near silence around the twenty-minute mark. It’s not easy to
recognize in this piece the sound of either bell of church organs, nor is it very clear what kind of
processing he uses. I do know this is a pretty strong collage of pure field recordings and some
kind of treatment he off and on applies to his sound material. Only at one point it seems as if is
using loops of sound, like a sledgehammer, but no doubt a church door lock. Sakellariou also
captured the wide open empty spaces in the church with the massive presence of people; all of
these sources he mixes together into this great soundscape composition and as said this is the
kind of music that requires the full attention of the listener as it’s dynamics will surely make
things not easy for a superficial listening session. I’d say: go deep, switch off everything and
listen closely. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.pogus.com
THE NEGATIVITY BIAS – WHATEVER YOU WANT (CD by Audiophob)
SPHERICAL DISRUPTED – PERIAPSIS (CD by Audiophob)
TORN FROM BEYOND – IF THE VIEW FREEZES (CD by Krater Recordings)
With a title like ‘Whatever You Want’, I found it hard not to think of the Status Quo song of the
same title, but the release by Chris Dupont, also known as The Negativity Bias, has nothing to do
with that. I am told he’s inspired by SCUBA, Marcel Dettmann, Planetary Assault Systems and
S.W.Z.K., none of which I think I ever heard, and he tries to bridge the gap between deep house
and industrial music, something that he actually succeeds in pretty well. Like I wrote with the
music of Will Long (see elsewhere), I never can be really sure what constitutes as deep house,
mainly because I never really looked into the finer specifics of deep house. But listening to this
and comparing it to Will Long’s release, the differences are quite big, but that is of course also
due to the fact that The Negativity Bias wants to combine it with industrial/noise music. The
music here is quite forceful and loud, but also has an excellent groove and a very fine ‘live feel’.
It is almost like The Negativity Bias recorded his music in a live situation, constantly twisting and
turning knobs; it’s not a static, programmed set of songs or something sequenced using Ableton
Live. In many of these songs The Negativity Bias has small minimal changes in the songs, by
moving around the faders and sliders. I was thinking what the industrial aspect of this music
would be, and maybe it is some of the nastier sounds The Negativity Bias uses off and on, but
throughout I just found all of this very pleasant indeed. There is no shock ‘n awe value here,
only highly entertaining crude house inspired electronic beats. Very lovely indeed.
Over the years there have not been a lot of releases for Spherical Disrupted, and it was seven
years that we last heard from Mirko Hentrich, which was the ‘Nature Limited’ release (Vital Weekly
759), although that was 2010. So I think Audiophob counts their release ‘Quasar’ as the previous
one (Vital Weekly 722), and yes, that was seven years ago. The music of Spherical Disrupted is
also heavily based on rhythm, but the tempo is much slower here and the synthesizers play a
bigger role. Ambient is surely a word that fits this music, and then it comes with quite some
rhythm, which sounds from time to time inspired by acid music. So, could one say this ambient
house? Here I am not so sure really. There is a dark cloud over all of this actually, most of the times
at least. In a song like ‘Through Homunculus Nebula’ the rhythm is quite mechanical and the synths
ound nicely warm, which makes it not easy to be ambient or house, or any variation thereof. When
the rhythm is absent, in ‘Observatory (3)’ for instance one notices that the ambient is quite dark
and melancholic. The music is many different things and from time to time I had the impression
that Spherical Disrupted is not sure which musical path to fully explore. I couldn’t say for him what
worked best and what would be great route. I do like his ambient side, but it’s not necessarily the
most the original in its kind, but if the rhythm would have a bit more groove, it could be a
combination that could work really well.
Rhythm is not something one finds easily on the CD by Bart Lehmann’s project Torn From
Beyond. Before he worked as Mortaja, also for Audiophob, but now his music diversified a lot
more and so he decided to use the name Torn From Beyond for all those sounds that are dark
and atmospheric and records for Krater Recordings, a label run by Mirko Hentrich (and most likely
is some sort of subdivision of Audiophob). This is their first CD release, following a bunch of CDR
releases. The eight pieces are quite long, somewhere between seven and twelve minutes and are
created by dark blocks of synthesizer sounds, slowed down voices and highly obscured field
recordings. Reverb units work overtime, but it works pretty well; Torn From Beyond don’t over-
do things in that department. At times the whispering voices made it all a bit too magick/ritual/
psychik for my taste, but without that the overall music I thought was most enjoyable. Nothing
very exciting, and something that could have fitted the playbook of Cold Meat Industry I thought,
but since that’s no longer a going concern, someone has to dive in the gap (cave is perhaps a
better word). This is the perfect soundtrack for a likewise winter’s day, I think. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.audiophob.de
––– Address: http://krater.audiophob.de
HIROSHI HASEGAWA/OPENING PERFORMANCE ORCHESTRA – FRACTION
ELEMENTS (CD by Psych KG / E-Klageto)
The CD digipack has on it the caption “No Melody, No Rhythm, No Harmony. This is Fraction Music”.
Anyone familiar with such sentiments might expect something like Vomir’s HNW. Depending on
their attitude to HNW they would either be disappointed or pleasantly surprised. Recorded in Tokyo
and Prague the disk has three tracks all about 20 minutes. The first is Hiroshi, the second both the
last O.P.O. The last two tracks re-mixes or improvisations based on the first. These variations take
the form of processing by what I expect is in the main effects such as reverb and filters. The
opening track begins with a massive drone. This morphs through the 20 minutes, is added to
with higher pitches and textures, but the deep bass is never far away. It is neither that noisy and
certainly not harsh. It appears in fact ‘beautifully’ composed if I can use such a term. There is static
and feedback, sweeps and swoops but all this is it appears aesthetically choreographed. As above
the two ‘variations’ are best described as such. The whole then is neither harsh or noise or wall.
The term fraction music for me does not allude to the abstract compositions and variations.
‘Abstract sound’ or even abstract expressionist sound would IMO better portray the works. I am
reminded of the visual equivalent of the exhibition of Abstract Expressionism I recently visited at
the R.A. (which I strongly recommend to anyone who has not seen these magnificent works…)
From my point of view, these ‘musical’ pieces, and I think ‘music’ is the correct term, are in
abstract sound very close to such aesthetics. Beauty seems a little dated these days, which is
a pity, more than that ugliness is now it seems firmly established as the current ideology. If such
aesthetics is escapism, well it’s maybe time we did escape. (Jliat)
––– Address: psychkg@online.de
ANEMONE TUNE/POST SCRIPTUM – LITANIAE MORTUORUM
DISCORDANTES (CD/LP by The Epicurean)
More religious connotations can be found on the split effort by Anemone Tube and Post Scriptum,
which they sell as ‘intended for church performance’. They also inform us about the title that it
was “Originally applied to a particular style of ancient ritual music, in the Classical era the term
Litaniae Mortuorum Discordantes attained a negative connotation and was used to criticize those
compositions – which, instead of instilling listeners with the desired pious euphoria, incriminated
them with a sense of dread, existential anxiety, feelings of death and decay” and it comes from a
semi-fictional biography of J.S. Bach from a 19th century Russian author, who claimed that Bach
was composing this kind of compositions in his early years. In the dark world of The Epicurean it
is easily an incentive for a commission and so there are three pieces here by Anemone Tube and
three by Post Scriptum, the latter of whom I think I never heard before. He hails from Brooklyn,
New York, and dabbles in quite dark, gothic castle music. Lots of synthesizers, some percussion,
spoken word samples, but not necessarily uses an endless amount of reverb to erect a mountain
of drone music, even when reverb is something that he is not shy of using. In ‘Dark And Nameless
Gods’ he uses a sparse rhythm machine, which slowly hammers time away, which made for a nice
change in this kind of musical world. Quite good these pieces, I thought, as he offered quite a bit
of variation in them, both inside the pieces as the overall feel of the pieces and with a variety that
didn’t hurt the unity of the music.
Stefan Hanser’s project Anemone Tube has been around for quite some years and throughout
his career we reviewed some of his work. As before he uses field recordings from Kyoto, Nanjing
and Shanghai, along with synthesizer sounds and gong on one track, played by Post Scriptum. In
much of his other work Anemone Tube plays the noise card quite a bit, but on his three pieces here
he is actually in a very subdued mood, which suits him very well. Maybe it is that church atmosphere
that he is aiming for, some religious contemplation mood? Or maybe even some devilish mood? It
could be either of course, as a firm non-believer I think it could be the same thing. The chanting of
people and the rattling of cages surely has a fine cerebral texture and here too it works very well.
A more ambient version of Anemone Tube is a great idea; he should do more like this, I think.
Me myself I didn’t feel elevated after hearing all of this, or particular depressed actually, but
I found it all most enjoyable. Hopefully that is allowed! (FdW)
––– Address: http://the-epicurean.transformed.de/theepicurean.html
ERIK GRISWOLD – ECSTATIC DESCENT (CD by Cold Blue Music)
NICHOLAS CHASE – BHAJAN (CD by Cold Blue Music)
Here we have two new releases by Cold Blue Music, one of my favourite labels for modern minimal
music, the world of serious composers and performers. This time around it comes with music by
two composers of whom I never heard. First we have Erik Griswold, who is a composer and pianist
with a special interest in prepared piano, percussion, environmental music and music of China’s
Sichuan province and listening to his piece ‘Ecstatic Descent’ I can see all of these interests, save
for the last one, and that’s because I have no knowledge of that. In this piece he prepares all of
the notes of the piano; the white keys with paper, rubber or a screw at a harmonic, changing the
tone colour but nor the pitch. The back keys are treated with double preparations, such as bolts,
and screws and cardboard strips, thus lowering the pitch and changing the tone colour. The piece
has two main parts. In the first half he plays clusters of sounds, all at the same time and it forms
one giant cluster of sounds, in which one recognizes rhythmical patterns, but he plays it with a
light touch also, with too much sustain and that keeps it very refined. In the second half he uses
a lot of pauses between the notes, so it opens up and he plays groups of short rhythmical sounds,
like wooden wind chimes flapping around in the wind, but then with some silence in between to
make that the decay can sound out. The end part last five minutes and here Griswold plays the
strings with a mallet in one hand and the keys with the other and marks a distinct difference with
the other parts. The whole piece sounds great; it is very rhythmical, very tonal, but to a certain
degree also abstract and throughout very percussive. This is indeed very much something why I
like the releases of Cold Blue Music.
On the other release we find composer Nicholas Chase on computer and electronics,
performing along with Robin Lorentz on electric violin and she also commissioned this piece from
Chase. She had health issues, preventing her from playing this piece, but she fully recovered and
now she can. “‘Bhajan’ is the general term for any variety of Hindu devotional song, typically sung,
with a strong melodic component”, Chase says and here it is all about “temporal freedom, melodic
non-structure, fusions of musical genre, disparate ethnicities and instrumental combinations, and
explores my own ideas about breath and timing”, he continues. As far as I can see both instruments
here act separately of each other. It’s not that the violin transforms the playing of violin. At least
that’s what I think; that both are independent entities. The four pieces here flow into each other
and perhaps this is not entirely the kind of music you would expect from Cold Blue Music. It is
perhaps with this electronica (and I have no idea what that is here, max/msp?, Abelton live?,
puredata? My guess is as good as yours) that it sounds different, but also the violin is a bit
different from what we are used to with this label. This is all less about the refined modern classical
minimalism but in a way it sounds, from time to time, much more improvised but then in a very
gentle way. Neither electronics nor violin do anything, quite rightfully I would think, to upset the
listener, but it’s also a bit less ‘light’ and ‘delicate’ than we are used to. That is all not to say I
don’t like this music; in fact I do like it a lot. This is full mysterious building tension with sometimes
sine wave like sounds, Eastern sounding melodies on the violin and sometimes very much electro-
acoustic sounding electronic interference. Perhaps less minimal and just very modern classical?
Either way, it works well. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.coldbluemusic.com
WINTERBLOOD – CULTI SEGRETI (CD by Frozen Light)
Ah, it says Winterblood on the spine, as the metal inspired lettering on the cover, oh scary, didn’t
mean much to me. I reviewed something by this Italian project before, ‘La Via Di Neve’ in Vital
Weekly 1020, and now I learn it is the musical project of Stefano Senesi. That was ‘the road of
snow’, now we have we have ‘secret cults’ and the music has changed a bit too. It was before all
quite mellow and synthesizer based, now it has become all a bit darker, if that was possible. The
opening piece lasts nearly twenty minutes and is formed out of mildly distorted sounds, voices
perhaps, with a lot of delay. It’s not bad, but I wondered if ten minutes would perhaps have made
the same impact, and I think it would. The other three pieces are more my cup of tea, I guess.
Here too the mood remains all dark and atmospheric, but it works more from the perspective of
electronics and drones and not some obscure voice manipulation. Maybe these pieces are quite
minimal, more so than the first one but it has some shimmering melodic side at least, certainly in
‘Precipizio’, along with some thunderous field recording of electrical discharges, or simply the
opening and closing of filters, such as in ‘La Forza Del Vento’, which works quite effectively in all
its simplicity. Winterblood doesn’t do anything else than what they did before, which is the
production of fine dark music, now maybe with slightly different means, or at least different
results. And so darkness falls in wintery cold The Netherlands and Winterblood has a bunch of
fine tunes to go along. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.frzl.ru/
CHEVAL SOMBRE – IF IT’S YOU (7″ lathe cut by Static Caravan)
This is a picture disc lathe cut, meaning two separate discs and in between they stuck an old view
master card; it’s looks as ancient and as beautiful as that sounds. Did I hear of Cheval Sombre
(sombre horse?) before? I have no idea. It’s a guy who sings and plays guitar, while on the first
side there is Gillian Rivers on viola, and the B-side is credited to Cheval Sombre with Alastair
Galbraith, who plays e-bowed guitars; this side is all instrumental. The vocal side sees Cheval
Sombre strumming way, very folky and his voice is double/triple tracked, backed with some
reverb and the viola drops in all weeping. This is a sombre song indeed, and at that quite folky.
Winter is coming, hell it freezes already, life is shit (probably), the world is coming to an end and
Cheval Sombre is all dramatic. This is the true romantic (19th century notion) spleen I guess and
I love it.
The instrumental flip however sheds some light on this dark and cloud (and cold) winter’s
day. Sombre strums again, but the e-bowed guitar of Galbraith is between a drone and a hurdy-
gurdy; or is that like a hurdy-gurdy trying to sound like bagpipes but it sounds like a guitar? There
is something quite uplifting about this piece, even when I am not sure it should be. It made me
happy and the world doesn’t end today. Tomorrow is either likely a candidate for the pending
apocalypse or just another day. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.staticcaravan.org/
PHILIP SULIDAE – SCENES FROM A DUPLEX (CDR by Hemisphäre)
It’s been a while since I last heard from Philip Sulidae, Vital Weekly 925, when I reviewed his
‘History of Violence’, which started in exactly the same way, ‘it’s been a while since I last heard’,
and we know that it surely takes time for him to complete works. So far his releases (also reviewed
in Vital Weekly 692, 709, 724 and 755) have been on Unfathomless, Mystery Sea, Ripples and his
own Dontcaresulidae. That last one I heard was about ‘guilty places’, for this new one he solely
uses field recordings that he made ‘from a single dwelling in the Inner West of Sydney’, and a
piano and discarded memory cards belonged to the household. Sulidae is the kind of guy who
works and reworks his field recordings until something arises that is no longer to be recognized
as the original field recording; save perhaps for that bang on the piano in ‘Storm (Front Of House)’,
but that’s a rare exception. Sulidae uses quite extreme processes to filter out lots of sound and
from whatever residue is left he builds a collage of sounds, forming two compositions on this
release, which both last here 14:43 and 14:44. I am sure there is a conceptual angle there too.
Some of his frequencies are a quite high or very low, such as the rumble of thunder over head in
‘Storm (Front Of House)’, which of the two seems the piece with the most action and volume, I
think. ‘Inverse Storm (Backyard Soundtrack) has more continuous layers of sounds, which from
time to time seem to be recorded from afar; it sounds like he’s trying to pick street sounds
through a closed door, thus amplifying the ’empty’ sounds so that it becomes alive. Not entirely
the haunted house soundtrack, but something that worked very well, along the lines of the work
of say Roel Meelkop or Marc Behrens and as such it’s not something you haven’t heard before, I
guess, but Sulidae has enough his own to make a fine, solid impression. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.hemispharenokukyo.wordpress.com
HYDRA FEAT. STEREORENT – IMPROVISIONS (CDR by Hazard Records)
DAVID DIAZ & ANTONIA FUNES – 5GATOS (miniCDR by Hazard Records)
Hopefully I got the title right this time, as last time (Vital Weekly 862) I got it wrong when I
reviewed a solo work by Adria Bofarull, who is also known as Hydra. He’s a man who likes to play
improvised music and sometimes works with Xavier Tort, Rafa Zaragoza, Huan, Jean Francois
Pauvros and already did seven albums with Dargelos. Here he teams up with a group called
Stereorent, which is a free rock group from Molins de Rei. They have a floating membership,
and here consists of Pancho Balada, Jesus de la Torre en Juanjo Lopez; I assume Hydra is the
man who controls the sampling device. There are five short pieces here and one that is about
the same length as all five together. The improvisations are best be called sparse and quiet, and
without too much emphasis on one thing or another. The guitar is one of the few instruments
that can be heard, there is some electronics and such like it. All of it sounds pretty vague and
non-present to make much impression on the listener; it is not that this is not a good release,
but everybody seems to be too careful to be present at all.
David Diaz on his trusted Korg MS20 and Antonia Funes on her cello return from ‘Qrquesta
Antomanierista’, which was reviewed in Vital Weekly 854, and now they return as a duo. Here they
have rather short improvisations, which span altogether fifteen minutes. Unlike the music I just
found on the other new release by Hazard Records, this is quite present and more defined as a
duet between cello and synthesizer, and the interaction between them. Oddly enough sometimes
one of these two sound like a trumpet, which I though was quite funny. The way Diaz plays his
synth reminds me of sixties electronic music, but in a rather naive way. His tones have a sort
attack and little sustain, and sound just ancient; Funes on her cello provides some fine additional
sound material, and here too her instrument doesn’t sound like a cello, most of the time that is.
All in all a damn fine release, and at fifteen minutes rather a bit short, but then so be it. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.hazardrecords.org
DEADMAN’S GHOST – HYPOCRITICAL OATH (cassette by Ephem Aural)
This is the third release by Jason Mills, from Belfast, but the first time I encounter his music. Mills
plays all the instruments, and none are specified. There are, I think, electronics, guitars, banjo,
vocals, field recordings, while one David Baxter plays ‘synths and beats’ on two songs, Claire
Hutchinson plays the accordion once and namesake jenny provides backing vocals on another
song. If you hear the opener here, ‘Ogham Script’, you might think this goes out to the world
of ambient and drones but then ‘Paper Figurines’, the next track sees Mills picking up a guitar
and strumming away, in a good folk noir mood, along with the backing vocals of Jenny. Of course
I am not really the sort of person who recognizes all of this straight away and I’m sure there are
many more references to be made, but I couldn’t help thinking of the voice of David Tibet and the
music of Current 93, but not with the same power here, especially when it comes to using the
voice. Tibet’s voice is simply stronger, but Mills delivers with a fine baritone his moody lyrics,
albeit not in all of the songs here. Some of these are instrumental; yet work with the same folky
feel. When a beat is used, in ‘Neck Romancer’ the dark spell of the album is broken and it becomes
less of a homogenous thing and that’s a pity. That song is not bad, but in all it’s dark wave a bit
out of place, I think, however it’s Dracula themed lyrics fit right in with the rest. This album has
many different sides, gentle folky, ambient textures and a darkwave stomping song, and it made
me think: what is it that Deadman’s Ghost want here? He surely know how to play a fine tune or
two, and knows his way around in various genres, but has not yet made up his made as to which
direction he will fully explore. (FdW)
––– Address: http://ephem-aural.bandcamp.com
KARL FOUSEK – ONE ANOTHER (cassette by Limited Interest)
Following two earlier releases on Adhesive Sounds and Phinery (see Vital Weekly 946), here is a
new release by Montreal’s Karl Fousek. There have been some more releases. Here he appears on
a new label from Los Angeles with more music from his modular synth set-up. Unfortunately
there is just one piece, on the first side, while the other side is blank. I don’t understand that (I
could insert a joke about this and the name of the label, but I won’t). This is quite a nice piece of
modular synthesizer music. Here it seems all a bit more abstract than it did before, and small
melodies seem no longer to be present. There is a notion of techno music in here, I think, with
those evolving bass tones, but otherwise it remains far from it. The overall mood is perhaps best
described as a cruder form of ambient, with all these slow developments and ditto built-up. The
sketch-like aspect of his previous releases seems to be gone now, and it all works very well. It
might be some fifteen minutes or a little more minutes – there is no bandcamp to check this out
and while that is something that we don’t see a lot, I think the lack of a second side is a great
pity. I really wouldn’t have minded another piece like this. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.limited-interest.com/news/
ANDREY POPOVSKIY – WORKS FOR VOICE RECORDERS 2011, 2016 (cassette
by Spina Records)
BLANK DISC TRIO/EX YOU (split cassette by Spina Records)
ANDREY SVIBOVITCH/SERGEY VANYSHEV (split cassette by Spina Records)
Here’s a trio of new releases by St-Petersburg’s Spina Records, of which the first one is by Andrey
Popovskiy, of whom I reviewed ‘Rotondo’ in Vital Weekly 946. Both sides are related and yet also
different. On the second side Popovskiy plays with two other people, Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky on
trumpet and Mikhail Kuleshin on drums, while Popovskiy plays acoustic guitar, e-bow, mini fans
and voice recorders. The first side of the tape is just him playing voice recorders, by which he
could mean Walkman’s or Dictaphones. In the first three he uses something else than on the
other two pieces, which is a four-track machine. In these pieces Popovskiy explores the mechanics
of the devices by amplifying them and subsequently recording them. I can sort of picture what it
is that he does, even when I might be wrong. In the five pieces on this side, the explorations lead
to five times interesting collage of mechanical, lo-fi sound. Captured in a room, in various different
constructions the music can be very mechanical, such as the two four-track pieces are, but also a
bit more (even more?) lo-fi on the first three pieces, with more hiss and static mechanics rattling
about. This is all highly conceptual, but at the same time also very enjoyable. In that respect the
B-side of this tape is perhaps something that is a bit less surprising, I should think. Not while it is
bad per-se but maybe because this is very much along the lines of standard improvised music,
even when it is also very minimal, with mini fans strumming the strings and the cymbals are
played in regular motion, while the trumpet does his best to do something else. As said, this is
not a bad work, but too formulaic for my taste.
The other two releases are both split releases and on the first we find two trios from Serbia,
and I believe I heard of both of them before. From Blank Disc Trio I reviewed a CDR they did with
Jonas Kocher, when they were called Blank Disc and they were two (see Vital Weekly 684). Now
we find as members, Srđan Muc (electric guitar), Robert Roža (electronics, objects) and Georg
Wissel (prepared alto saxophone). There is a bit of help by Dušica Cajlan-Wissel (piano) and Julien
Baillod (electric guitar), each on two pieces. Blank Disc Trio with guests are most of the time a
carefully playing unit, exploring all (well, almost all) of the sounds one can get out these
instruments without wanting to sound necessarily like a guitar or saxophone. It makes the
music also quite abstract, but I found it also a bit too careful; a bit more spice would do no
harm, and as such Ex You do better job. This trio, Milan Milojković (electronics), László Lenkes
(guitar) and Filip Đurović (drums) with guest Ernő Zsadányi (cello) may play in a much more
conventional way, but with a lot more force to their end. Here the instruments sound as they
were intended by manufacturer of said instruments, which is not bad, but could also be better.
So a combination of Blank Disc Trio and Ex You: that’s what we want.
The other release is all about electronics and has the music of Andrey Svibovitch and Sergey
Vandyshev. The first has four pieces and judging by the titles it also all based on the use of the
voice; and so, I assume, laptop technology to transform them. There was a time everybody used
the same vocoder plug in to imitate the sound of Gas (the Kompakt project rather than the
substance), and I am sure that sort of plug in now comes with Ableton Live. I wouldn’t be
surprised to learn that this is the thing that Andrey Svibovitch does here. Sampling his own
voice, giving these samples the full Ableton treatment and bob’s y’r uncle. There is not a lot of
difference between the four parts, except that the fourth one has a bit of extra rhythm built in,
which makes it (finally!) come closer to the world of techno. A bit too easy I thought.
Vandyshev has been composing music for a long time, so I read on the website, but his
debut performance was this year. He has five pieces here, which are also generated, I would think,
inside the laptop, with perhaps Ableton Live, or perhaps some sort of max/msp surrounding, but
Vandyshev has more of a voice for himself, literally as in ‘Track 05’ he more or less sings. His
ambient inspired dance music is not really aiming for the dance floor, not even for an inclusion
on ‘Popambient’ I would think, but alas, it worked quite well, while cleaning and cooking. (FdW)
––– Address: http://spinarec.bandcamp.com