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number 1065
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week 2 ---------------------
Vital Weekly, the webcast: we offering a weekly webcast,
freely to download. This can be regarded as the audio-supplement to
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of the CDs (no vinyl or MP3) reviewed. It will remain on the site for a
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MICHEL REDOLFI - DESERT TRACKS (CD by Sub Rosa) * MICROTUB - BITE OF THE ORANGE (CD by Sofa Music) * MUDDERSTEN - KARPATKLOKKE (CD by Sofa Music) * THE TOBACCONISTS - STREETLIGHT (LP by Minor Label) * AHOE AHOEA (LP by Bunkerpop Records) BOURBONESE QUALK - ARCHIVE 1980-1986 (4LP by Vinyl On Demand) LAIBACH - LIVE IN HELL (LP by Vinyl On Demand) DANIEL W J MACKENZIE - EVERY TIME FEELS LIKE THE LAST TIME (CDR by Eilean Records) * NOISESCULPTOR - KARMA-SHELTER (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) * AARON BACHELDER - MUSIC FOR A NEW DARK AGE (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) * NYM (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) * HARD GONZO TAPPERS (CDR compilation by Attenuation Circuit) KSHATRIY - SAMANTABHADRA (cassette by Attenuation Circuit) * RAVEN/EMERGE - FORSAKEN (split cassette by Attenuation Circuit) AGNES PE - ITEM TOURIAN (cassette by Powdered Hearts Records & Tapes) MICHEL REDOLFI - DESERT TRACKS (CD by Sub Rosa) For a while Michel Redolfi lived in Amsterdam and perhaps I even met him once or twice as I participated in a project that would take music into space; the question was 'what are your favourite sounds and record those for thirty seconds', to be shipped off on a CD as part of the European Space Program. I handed in thirty seconds of frying bacon, but I never heard if it's now on a trajectory to space (and beyond); maybe it just never got off the ground? I am not sure if our enterprise stocked copies of the CD 'Desert Tracks' when it came out in 1988, even when an Englishman who came by on a daily basis heavily pushed the music of Redolfi (and who contributed to VW in it's early days under the guise of 'The Square Root Of Sub'). I am pretty sure I didn't hear it back then, or I did not mentally store it, as this re-issue sounds like something I didn't hear before. In 1987, Redolfi visited the California Desert road and made recordings in the Mojave Desert, Death Valley and Palm Canyon, which, upon his return in France, transformed these into electronic music. It is now re-issued as part of Sub Rosa's 'early electronic series', and I was thinking "1987? Early? That wasn't that long ago. Oh, thirty years. Wow". Redolfi worked with Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Henry and Jean-Claude Risset, putting him right among the best in the field of electro-acoustic music. From 1973 to 1984 he lived in the USA, perhaps then getting the idea to do recordings in this hot area. In these years he also started doing underwater music projects, but later on, just like life on earth, moved onto land. This I thought was interesting because one already hears much of the digital processes that these days are so commonly found inside laptops and easy to use software, so that everymen can be an electro-acoustic composer, and here they are used on this release from thirty years ago. It's probably the kind of stuff that was thought very highly off in those years, which makes this perhaps a piece of music that is very much of it's time. That, for me, says nothing about the quality of the music actually, as I do enjoy this very much. Redolfi's music works with lots of treated sounds of natural sounds, and sometimes it seems as if we hear the untreated sounds, which is very well possible, but throughout the electronic aspect is the main thing here. The four pieces of the original (and a bonus piece from 1984, which wasn't on the original vinyl) paint a very clear picture of heat, sand, cactus being played, and wind, sometimes being a small storm. This is a beautiful sonic journey, and perhaps one would not recognize the Mojave Desert as such (but then, I never been to that place), it sounds all quite organic and gorgeous. It is an excellent work of field recordings and electronic processing. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.subrosa.net MICROTUB - BITE OF THE ORANGE (CD by Sofa Music) MUDDERSTEN - KARPATKLOKKE (CD by Sofa Music) Here we have two new releases on Norway's Sofa Music and on both discs we find music played with a tuba. On the first disc it is exclusively a tuba, but then by a trio of players. Robin Hayward, who has presented quite a few works on the tuba, which we reviewed, plays a 'microtonal F-tuba', Martin Taxt and Peder Simonsen both play a 'microtonal C-tuba. This is their third album for Sofa but it is the first I hear from this trio. One could easily think that this is within the realm of improvised music, but Robin Hayward composed two of the three pieces, the two longer ones and the trio composed the short one in between these. This is, at twenty-six minutes, is a rather short CD, with two pieces of ten/twelve minutes and one that is over three minutes, sandwiched in between. But what is captured with in this time frame is something that is very captivating. These three pieces are very minimal in development and the range of the three tubas is very close to each other, so we have this dense, intertwining sound of the tuba. Drone like obviously, but then in a very natural way. I noticed before that the tuba might seem like a very unlikely instrument for this kind of microtonal music, which borders closely to ambient music, but if you listen to this, it makes very much sense to use this instrument in such a way. I was reminded of the music of Phill Niblock, but in the live approach of Microtub towards recording, one hears the breathing and the decay of the sounds (unlike in Niblock's own recordings, so another point of reference might be the work of Pauline Oliveros, even when Microtub use no electronics at all. This is however very much as deep listening as Oliveros' music, and it's simply a highly refined experience. Martin Taxt still plays 'microtonal tuba' on the release with a trio named Muddersten, but it's without any specific note mentioned and also electronics. The other members of the trio are Havard Volden (guitar, tape-loop) and Henrik Olsson (objects, friction, piezo). Muddersten we learn is 'a type of mudrock whose original constituents were clays. It looks like hardened mud and, depending upon the circumstances under it was formed, ut may show cracks or fissures, like a sun-baked clay deposit'. Still flowers can grow on this. The seven pieces here are improvisations and we also learn that the titles don't mean that much. The music is quite different than that of Microtub. It is hardly minimal and has lots of bigger and smaller events within each piece. Somewhere along the lines of (obviously) improvised music with the two instruments and the electro-acoustic approach of all the acoustic stuff used, along with the electronics into which these are fed. It moves back and forth, ranging from the quite (yet not complete) silent and the louder, chaotic (and yet never noisy) bits that are also to be found here. Their sounds bounce around completely without effects at points and then pick them up, move them around, through delay, reverb or whatever else there is, and they apply that to whatever it is they are doing. Sometimes there is no instrument to be heard and it seems an 'all-acoustic object' bash, but then the guitar and tuba pop up, out of nowhere it seems and their pieces move into something entirely different. I thought all of this was quite vibrant music, and that Muddersten plays it with some fine energy. Excellent work. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.sofamusic.no THE TOBACCONISTS - STREETLIGHT (LP by Minor Label) This is the sixth Tobacconists album according to Discogs, but whereas the group normally consists of just Frans de Waard (synthesizers & drumcomputers) and Scott Foust (radio, synthesizer, trumpet), this time Mike Popovich (bass guitar and electronics) is added to the ranks which turns out to be quite an interesting addition. The lads sat down in De Waard's studio after an extensive tour to promote their album "Smoking Is Green" and recorded two albums, of which the first, "A Secret Place", was released by A Giant Fern/Fabrica in 2014 and now this work is out on Minor Label. Listening to the record for the first time, I was kinda surprised by how groovy it is and this should be credited mainly to the excellent bass licks that Popovich adds to the mix. The tracks seem to be structured around De Waard's rhythmic programming which then gets a proper amount of drive from the bass guitar - think of a less strict version of Cabaret Voltaire or the industrial sibling of bands like Main (the early period, "Hydra/Calm"). Although the production and sound of the songs is quite uniform, there is a stark contrast between tracks that are almost upbeat like "King Tiger"/ "The Smart Money" and tracks that indeed have this brooding kind of "Main" atmosphere to them, like "Streetlight". The latter also sports Foust's creepy trumpet calls in it. My favourite is "Solitaire Syndrome"; it drops a repetitive wailing bass siren in the very beginning - not completely unlike a proper dubstep/d'n'b lead - that then gets incorporated in a mid tempo 6/8 rhythm, which reminded me a bit of cult hit "Misanthropy" by German duo November Növelet. Another track I kept playing was "Hidden", which to me sounds a bit like a Sonar track, with a fast- paced bass line on top of it. While listening to it, my mind wandered off and the track became the soundtrack to a high-speed pursuit scene in some sci-fi movie; something with helicopters, sunglasses and long black leather coats. Nice one. (PJN) ––– Address: http://www.minorlabel.de/ AHOE AHOEA (LP by Bunkerpop Records) BOURBONESE QUALK - ARCHIVE 1980-1986 (4LP by Vinyl On Demand) LAIBACH - LIVE IN HELL (LP by Vinyl On Demand) Recently I wrote somewhere that I don't care much about retro. It was in an e-mail when someone invited me to go to a concert of some old new wave band, I already forgot which, but I don't care about some has-been rockers in their fifties playing their not-so big hits from thirty years ago plus a bunch of new songs nobody knows. The market for retro is big, as he who didn't have any money thirty years ago, now has some cash to spare as there is now a well-paid job, kids out of the house and no more mortgage to be paid; so why not go out to see some old has-beens? What an intro to write about three releases that very much deal with that past, and for all of these three this is not so much a review (spoiler: I love 'm all; skip to the next review if that's enough to know) as much some private blabber of days long past. So I can more easily skip over the question: 'why bother with retro?', I guess. Let's start close to home and with something odd; odd, if you know me. As a 15 year I discovered the world of weird music, and very soon I decided that everything with synthesizers was very much up my alley. So when I dived head-deep in the world of independent cassette releases, that was the musical content. There was no-way of going back to post-punk guitar music. In them early days I bought a lot of those cassettes from a local store (Rebop, if you want to know) and I kept a list of every new cassette, and oh boy, I wish I still had that list, because I would enable me now to tell when I bought the cassette by a local band Ahoe Ahoea. Nijmegen isn't a big city but as a 17 year old boy from the suburbs, I wasn't exactly in touch with the local underground musicians, let alone squatters, and none of the other kids in my school cared even remotely what I was into, so I had no clue about this band. I even have no idea why I bought it, though a low price might have helped, and the fact that it was local. Later on, when I knew more musicians locally, I asked if anyone had any idea about this band, and all I got were some blank stares. Which is kind of odd, since Ahoe Ahoea was a rock band, so I expected they would have played well… somewhere in town? Much to amazement I saw that there is now a LP re-issue shared on Facebook and it finally got me in contact with the members, and I learned Ahoe Ahoea was a four piece, rather short lived (1980-1984) four piece band, with an interested in Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan, hence the band name, and projecting Laurel & Hardy movies at gigs, since their films were an influence on the lyrics. That explains some of the humour in these songs, which probably shocked the serious, extreme left-wingers of Nijmegen of those days. Their cassette is the only release they, and it surfaced a decade ago on a blog, which now lead to a re-issue of it on a US label. When I told Staalplaat in 1983 this was a great tape, and they should get ten, and they never sold a single copy, so they told me when I started working there in 1992. Nine songs on the LP, plus a few on the bonus download, this still sounds like a great release. Oddly enough (again!) I still know pretty much every song by heart, which means I must have played this to death back then. The music, Frans, what about the music? Oh yes, apart that it sounds great, I think if this would be new and arriving today, I would say something along the lines of "this is great music, some truly catchy songs, some very humorous lyrics ('Eiffeltower' seems to reference both The Cure and Grandmaster Flash in the lyrics); the band plays with some great energy, and there is a beautiful directness to the music when it comes to the recording. One could say this is some garage rock music, and probably is an inch or two removed from our usual musical interest, though lovely as it is". But now it's connected to my personal history, my musical DNA, and I still think this is great. So when I was deeply involved in the world of independent cassettes, buying and archiving information about them, I started my own cassette label and very much as I understood how these things were, I did cassette compilations, and had a series called '6x10=60', six bands provide each ten minutes of music, plus a sheet of 4 graphics (it all came in a plastic bag, as separate sheets, and looked terrible; also the design of the 'cover' was a real stinker; I'm so sorry about that) and I wanted to have people involved that I liked, such as Merzbow and Falx Cerebri (Volume 1), Controlled Bleeding and Le Syndicat (Volume 3) and Coup de Grace and Bourbonese Qualk on the second volume (and others as well). Especially Bourbonese Qualk I thought of as quite a catch. I liked their 'Laughing Afternoon' debut LP, but loved 'Hope', the second. The excellent combination of industrial rhythms, tinkling guitars (which I always thought sounded like Durutti Column), shouty vocals and odd violin/wind instrument treatments, was exactly the sort of thing I dug really well. So, when they gave me '10 minutes of Rough Mixes' I thought (first time revelation) 'oh a bit of a throwaway music for a compilation is handed in', but I kept following them and over the years remained a big fan, even in their techno/hardcore phase. Still I am quite proud that their last CD release was for my label. So it was a no brainer that I forked out some cash for this 4LP set, as it documents what I could easily say is my favourite period of the band, and essentially a bunch of very rare, early tracks from their earliest cassette only releases, which I never heard and a compilation of compilation pieces, plus a whole bunch of unreleased pieces. In the past Bourbonese Qualk had everything online for a free download, but I am sure that didn't include these pieces. Now expertly remastered by Jos Smolders at EarLabs, this is a lot of great music; each side may easily last twenty-five or so minutes. Bourbonese Qualk shows their many aspects in as many combinations. Some of this is a festival of recognition, as it includes various compilations that are sitting on the shelves here and there are a bunch of pieces of the split cassette they did with a guy called Hartmann, plus lots of enjoyment on the unreleased tracks as well as the ones I don't know. The biggest surprise here is the first LP, which contains the very earliest recordings of the Qualks, and these a noisiness about the music that we early see in their later career, a quick development, as it was not that loud on the first LPs. This is just not from a historical perspective interesting, but it sounds also very good; exactly the kind of industrial music that was coming on late seventies on the brink of 1980 from say Clock Dva or Throbbing Gristle. This is a great find! And then finally, we move a bit onwards in the 80s with our story, when I found out there was an artist run space in a city in the proximity of Nijmegen, a place called V2, in the city of 's- Hertogenbosch. I can't remember what was the first thing I saw there; probably Test Dept (recordings of which V2 released on cassette shortly after that, the classic 'European Network' release) or a night with an incredible Etant Donnes (which I never saw any better than on this night) and SBOTHI, among others. Either way, Laibach played shortly before and V2 released that too on cassette, with the plastic case stuck on a cardboard cogwheel. When I became a volunteer for V2 about a year or two later in the shop and label department, one of the duties was to hand cut these cogwheels as sales continued but not enough to go the place outside town to have them cut by a machine. Tedious manual labour, which somehow I think we loved, smoking and drinking coffee. Those were the days indeed; plenty of time as a student. I missed the Laibach concert, but I had the cassette, and that too popped up on a blog years ago, was already part of a box for Vinyl On Demand, and now becomes available as a standalone LP. I didn't get the box, mainly because I am not that big of a fan, but I guess this particular recording is special to me, having cut a few dozen of those cogwheels. The recording here is from 1985, as Laibach began building a strong following and it features some of their classic songs, such as 'Nova Akropola', 'Die Liebe' and 'Vier Personen'. Top heavy on the percussion, with the vocals seemingly shouting from the back of the stage. Hearing this, I see myself back on the floor at V2, cutting cogwheels, sticking on the artworks and making all the ends black with a marker. Time was available in endless supply; where did it all go? (FdW) ––– Address: http://bunkerpop.bandcamp.com/ ––– Address: http://www.vinyl-on-demand.com/ DANIEL W J MACKENZIE - EVERY TIME FEELS LIKE THE LAST TIME (CDR by Eilean Records) Somewhere in the ancient past, Daniel W.J. Mackenzie worked as Ekca Liena, and was a member of Plurals, but all of this, I think, is no longer the case. There have been a few releases under his own name, two of which made it in these pages (Vital Weekly 813 and 1033), while there have been also releases on Fluid Audio, Dead Pilot Records, Under The Spire, Home Normal, Thisquietarmy Records, Consouling Sounds and now there is a new one. Of the ones I heard, the oldest sounded quite minimal, reminding me of Steve Reich meeting Machinefabriek, while the other one was very quiet and subdued. That is something that he continues on this new release as well. The cover no longer lists instruments, but I should think there is quite an amount of guitars, string sounds and piano, as well as the usual electronic devices to transform, sustain and extent, plus the always- present field recordings. All of this is not unusual in the world of say Eilean Records, and yet even when there seem to be quite a bit of similarities in these releases, there are on a more microscopic level also some differences. The route that Mackenzie likes to travel is that of desolation, of quiet music and also of a somewhat more classical approach. His piano sounds are not without a touch of Satie, but electronically altered, a bit of reverb splashed out over them, and has at times a sombre atmosphere. There are also pieces that are a bit different, such as the field recordings/ atmosphere only of 'Varnes', with a very distant piano. These are rarities and also they are among the shorter pieces on this release. Mackenzie offers quite some variation in approaches here and throughout has a keen eye for the journey-like aspect of the music. Many of these pieces consist of many layers which makes this perhaps a heavy release, not as sparse as some of the other releases on Eilean Records and clocking in at one hour, this is some perfect music for the sombre time of the year. The desolation and greyness of January never sounded so beautiful. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.eilean-records.com/ NOISESCULPTOR - KARMA-SHELTER (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) AARON BACHELDER - MUSIC FOR A NEW DARK AGE (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) NYM (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) HARD GONZO TAPPERS (CDR compilation by Attenuation Circuit) KSHATRIY - SAMANTABHADRA (cassette by Attenuation Circuit) RAVEN/EMERGE - FORSAKEN (split cassette by Attenuation Circuit) This blast of new releases by Attenuation Circuit starts of with NoisescupltoR, as is the preferred way of spelling, like I already said a few weeks ago, when I reviewed 'Solap Are' by the same musician in Vital Weekly 1058. Now we learn some more about Robert Sipos from Eggenfelden, but I am not sure if it is all-true. The Bandcamp page has a whole story about techno, and some guy named Mixer Smith, who gave Sipos equipment and that this "techno primarily within industrial and dark line moving". I hear nothing of the sort on this disc. We have five pieces here that are exactly '11:49' in length and one that is '5:55', with the same sort of electronic noise and reverb as the previous release. Maybe the whole story is for lazy journalists who re-write a story without listening to the music; unless of course there is a mistaken identity in this, with the wrong files being copied. No rhythms, just this shrieking sound bouncing around in feedback with lots of loops. Somehow I seem not to be able to link this too: "His work has been featured on various compilation discs, and well-known DJs and producers like to use them for their mixes." Bad karma here I guess, but I miss the point of all of this. A new name then, Aaron Bachelder, and that is a very German sounding name, I think, but he's in fact from North Carolina where works as a composer, songwriter, educator and multi- instrumentalist. As a drummer he plays with Clare Fader and the Vaudevillains; the Darnell Woodies; and currently, the ever lovely Eugene Chadbourne, as well as improvising with others, recording music for commercials and releasing works on Albany International, Microearth Records, and other labels. And yet, I never heard of him. The four pieces on this release have very little to do with the world of drumming or percussion, and all with the world of electronic music. I couldn't say if this is the kind of modular synthesizer set up or something else, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is. The music of Bachelder seems very formal in a way, thought out. Like Jos Smolders last week, it might very well be that Bachelder sets out a few parameters and within that he finds his operations. Sounds are short and without much sustain, like small, overlaying blocks, in patterns that are a constant change course. It has both a mechanical feel as well as a human feel. It owes, as far as I can see, more to the world of serious composed music from the 60s than the current day trends of modular synthesizer playing 80s soundtrack pieces, the current popular genre (for some), or those who do another imitation of Tangerine Schulze. I must admit I didn't understand the title very music, as yes, I agree these times look grim, but this music can cheer you up; well, in a kinda of grim way. I for one thought this was a very enjoyable release. So far the name Nym popped up twice in Vital Weekly and I had no idea who he is, but from a review found on the Attenuation Circuit website it seems (but is it reliable?) that behind name we find labelboss Sascha Stadlmeier, but then anoNYMous, which makes it odd when I reviewed the release Nym did with Gerald Fiebig and Emerge; the latter also being a name used by Stadlmeier (hence me asking about the truth about that claim). The music is a re-issue of two earlier pieces, and everything is 'untitled' here, nothing for the release itself and for the two pieces. I don't think I would have guessed Stadlemeier is behind this but with the newly acquired knowledge it is perhaps not odd to see. Throughout these two long pieces samples play an important role, just like with Emerge, but everything has become denser and closer together, maybe because of an even more extended use of delay and reverb units. The first piece, clocking in at thirty-one minutes has a great industrial music feel to it of machine like sounds, situated in a great hall, and the microphone is moved slowly around to catch various mechanics humming together and new configurations arise, a new dialogue arise out of the fog. The second piece is a bit louder and more obscure; at times perhaps a bit too loud, just on the edge of distortion. There is an aspect of collage in this piece, which makes it a bit chaotic for my taste, though it was not bad; it is just that the other one seemed more captivating for my taste. 'The real northern noise-underground' played live at Sturmglocke, Hannover on the 9th of June; I am not sure what 'real' means; is there also a 'fake' underground then? Or are there other people claiming to be the real ones? Judging by the music this is a bunch of people who love their noise to be 'real' noise. Ah, real again. You know the drill (literally?); vicious, loud, unrelentness, distorted and without a moment of introspection. We switch on these pedals, that synth; bang that piece of metal, amplifier is on at 11, and rock on. Orifice, Ca$hperv, Java Delle, Wind Of Change (whose website is https://www.the-scorpions.com/, according to the cover, which leads you to the real (no? yes!) Scorpions, composers of sa(i)d tune, which gave Wind Of Change their name) and Helge Meyer, ending in a fine tradition, the "altogether now on stage 'open jam live improvisation'", and five times noise makes so much more noise. Apart from the pretty useless live improv-of-all, I enjoyed the five other pieces quite a bit; very minor differences to be noted in their approaches. Wind Of Change seems to have a bit heavier, distorted guitar sound and Helge Meyer uses more voice material than the others, in a start-stop mode, whereas Orifice sounds very digital in approach. To those not in the loop when it comes to the world of noise, this all might be nit-picking; that's something I realize, but when it comes to the 'real' underground you can not make mistakes. And finally two new cassettes. The first one is by Sergey Bulychec from Vsevolozhsk, Russia, who works as Kshatriy, a project he started on June 19, 2004. First he did a concert and then started to release music on such labels as Vetvei, Zhelezobeton, Muzyka Voln and Attenuation Circuit (and no doubt many others). Of the name I now learned that it "reflects only memories of ancient society in which spiritual values were no less important than material ones". Both pieces on this cassette are long form compositions, or rather loosely organised pieces of music, based around the uber-drone of massively formed sounds from the reverb unit and on top machine humming in 'Samantabhadra' or bell-like percussion in 'Samantabhadri' on the other side. It continues a path already walked for some time and it is something that Kshatriy does quite well. It is good, it is solid, but perhaps it is also possible to re-think the strategy a bit? The other cassette is a split between Raven and Emerge. Behind Raven is someone from Cacak, Serbia, who calls himself an 'anarchist, blogger, environmentalist, musicians and activist for human and animal rights' and he says he dabbles with harsh noise. His two pieces, both fifteen minutes, aren't exactly the kind of noise bursts one would perhaps think of when imagining harsh noise; sure enough it is quite loud, but within each of these pieces there is more happening that fifteen minutes of feedback and distortion; there is a sense of rhythm, movement (backward and forward), and even composition through the use of small synthesizers (long live the monotron) and plenty of effects, but it's the twiddling of knobs that makes the difference between boredom and excitement. This one is from the latter world. Labelboss Emerge has a thirty-two minute piece of samples fire sounds, or so it seems, although the description on Bandcamp says "EMERGE also uses and recycles raw material from a variety of artists/musicians", so I might be entirely wrong there. It sounds in places like the treament of fire sounds, going through the usual line of reverb, delay and loop stations, and this time it works out pretty well; what is captured in this piece works very well, I think. There is a beautiful interaction between close by and far away sounds, and from time to time there is a real menace in this beast. (FdW) ––– Address: http://attenuationcircuit.de AGNES PE - ITEM TOURIAN (cassette by Powdered Hearts Records & Tapes) In Vital weekly 1050 I reviewed an extended catalogue/jubilee book from the activities of the Zarata Festival, with a CD and I noticed that one Agnes Pe was on DJ duty on a lot of occasions. I wasn't aware she did music by herself as well, although I now learn that her own Bandcamp has quite a few of her releases. She offers here eleven pieces, although perhaps 'songs' would be a more appropriate word. Agnes Pe has a sampler, a keyboard and sings her songs. She doesn't operate in one specific area; it starts with something that could be hardcore techno, with fast pulsating beats and a certain amount of distortion is not uncommon in her songs. Chaos is another feature, and Pe likes to plunder other people's records for sounds and present them, whether or not they are changed, in the form of a song back to us. Along with the samples (rock music, classical, techno), she plays her keyboards in a similar chaotic fashion; some of the songs are pretty melodic and would pass the test as a wacky pop song, such as 'Al K-Pony Car Song' or the sweeter 'Two Legged Rat', with its bleep Gameboy sounds. Think of this as a sort of even freakier version of Felix Kubin and you are on the road to Agnes pe. (FdW) ––– Address: http://powderedheartsrecords.bandcamp.com • |