number 1061
---------------------
week 50 ---------------------
Vital Weekly, the webcast: we offering a weekly webcast,
freely to download. This can be regarded as the audio-supplement to
Vital Weekly. Presented as a radioprogramm with excerpts of just some
of the CDs (no vinyl or MP3) reviewed. It will remain on the site for a
limited period (most likely 2-4 weeks). Download the file to
your MP3 player and enjoy! Listen to the podcast on Mixcloud! before submitting material please read this carefully: http://www.vitalweekly.net/fga.html Submitting material means you read this and approve of this.
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 • |