number 1069
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week 6 ---------------------
Vital Weekly, the webcast: we offering a weekly webcast,
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ALEJANDRO ALBORNOZ - FLUCTUACIONES (CD by Pueblo Nuevo) * … THAT FIRST SEASON (2CD compilation by Winter-Light) THE CORE TRIO WITH MATTHEW SHIPP (CD by Evil Rabbit) BILIANA VOUTCHKOVA – MODUS OF RAW (CD by Evil Rabbit) OGUZ BUYUKBERBER & SIMON NABATOV – WOBBLY STRATA (CD by Trytone) TUNNELS OF ĀH - SURGICAL FIRES (CD by Cold Spring) BURIAL HEX - THRONE (CD by Cold Spring) BIRGIT ULHER & FELIPE ARAYA - REPLICA SCORIACON (CD by Inexhaustible Editions) * CARL STONE - ELECTRONIC MUSIC FROM THE SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES (3LP by Unseen Worlds) * NEU KONSERWATIW (LP compilation by Walter Ulbricht Schallfolien) ANDREAS O. HIRSCH - ROW (LP by Makiphon) BLUE CHEMISE - INFLUENCE ON DUSK (LP by Greedy Ventilator) BORIS HAUF - CLARK (LP by Shameless) NOISE WAR (5CD by Audio Dissection/Industrial Recollection) COLDSORE - POLLUTANT (CDR by Totes Format) * FJORDNE & STABILO - ANDREW (CDR by Sound In Silence) * BRAIN DRAIN - RECORDED FUTURE (cassette, private) * ALEJANDRO ALBORNOZ - FLUCTUACIONES (CD by Pueblo Nuevo) From Chile hails composer Alejdanro Albornoz Rojas (although he leaves out the latter name on the front cover), born in 1971 and who discovered, thanks to the Goethe Institute in Santiago, in 1987 electroacoustic music. It was not, however, until 2004 when, after a career in visual arts, he started to compose this kind of music himself. Since then his work has been performed in various festivals, and he's actively involved in the organisation thereof, and composes these days music for theatre, dance and video, as well as teaching. His interest lies in exploring the human voice, poetry, language, acousmatic and algorithms. The pieces on this CD were recorded/composed between 2006 and 2016. Due to various highly uninteresting reasons I had this CD in rotation for three times in a row, partly in state of close listening and partly being distracted by other things; every now and then I looked up, and thought, 'what was that again', or I browsed the liner notes for a bit, to check what a particular piece was about. It seems that Albornoz has quite the serious approach when it comes to composing when I read 'sound materials created exclusively by software synthesis are used with acousmatic criteria and techniques, having as a mandatory condition the avoidance of sounds recorded with microphone', for instance. It is music that I played with great interest and I must admit to various degrees I enjoyed it, yet not all of it. Some of the pieces with voices were not something that I enjoyed too much, like 'Un Regalito Misterioso' and 'La Luniere', but I found it hard to pin down why that was. Other pieces I did enjoy a lot more, even when perhaps some of Albornoz' approaches were a bit too serious for me. (FdW) ––– Address: http://pueblonuevo.cl/ … THAT FIRST SEASON (2CD compilation by Winter-Light) Every week I post Vital Weekly on Tuesday and copy the link on Facebook, and a few people duly share it. Dutch label Winter-Light are among those who always share the latest issue, thus of course making sure I notice their latest releases. I usually get a heads up when something new is in the mail, so when it concerned '… That First Season - A Winter-Light compilation', I wrote back and asked if they ever read my warning (on the website of Vital Weekly) "we understand that labels release label-samplers, to promote their label. Give them away to your customers, but rather not send them to us. We simply are not fond of reviewing label samplers", and yes they did but wanted to give it a shot anyway. Fine, of course, as the problem is very rarely with the musical content of compilations, but rather it has to do with the fact there is very little to tell about them, unless wants to write an in-depth essay with a per-track breakdown of the music, and perhaps there is where we find the problem with label compilations, certainly with the likes of Winter-Light. Obviously there are differences among these seventeen pieces, but by and large this comes from the world of drone music, atmospheric tunes and heavily processed field recordings. There haven't been many releases by Winter-Light so far, just by Abbildung, Seetyca, Phantom Ship, Foetus Dreams and Rapoon, so all the others present here are label favourites and could perhaps serve as a reference for future releases. Lots of new names, for me, Nexus Sun, Charadriiform & Filivs Macrocosmi, Velgenaturlig, Havdis, Apocryphos, Kloob, but also Hakubone, Mathoas Grassow (working with Michael Brückner), Strom Noir, Jeff Stonehouse, and Gydja; the latter I haven't heard in many years. Much of the music contains very stretched out lines played on a bunch of (software-) synthesizers, with a vague sequencer back up (Bruckner/Grassow), but that's an exception. Sometimes there is a rhythm (Rapoon), or the heavily processed crackling of leaves. I look outside and even at the very beginning of February the days begin to be a bit longer; today is an utterly grey and dark day, with a bit of drizzle. Very much the sort of winter-light (as opposed to winter-heavy) that The Netherlands experience most of the years. Dutch label Winter-Light provides the perfect soundtrack for such days. While none of the pieces was a particular standout, I enjoyed it very much, and thought this was a fine showcase. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.winter-light.nl/ THE CORE TRIO WITH MATTHEW SHIPP (CD by Evil Rabbit) BILIANA VOUTCHKOVA – MODUS OF RAW (CD by Evil Rabbit) Most releases of this Dutch label have – no surprise - a link with Holland. Concerning these two new releases however the link with Holland seems absent. The Core Trio based in Houston is comprised of Thomas Helton (double bass), Seth Paynter (sax) and Joe Hertenstein (drums). They exist since 2004 and a few years ago they released two CDRs, one with Robert Boston and one with Matthew Shipp as a guest, both released in a small number on Freebass Productions. The one with Matthew Shipp was recorded in 2014, as is this new release on Evil Rabbit. The CD has two lengthy improvisations both taking more than 30 minutes, recrded at Ovations Night Club, November 22th in Houston. Heavy free jazz of a serious nature, where I vainly hoped for a bit of humour. There is a prominent role for pianist Matthew Shipp. But also Paynter and Hertenstein made their mark in these intense and engaging improvisations. Helton is impressively present halfway the first improvisation in a battle with the piano. ‘Modus of Raw’ is another piece of cake, with a title that made me instantly very curious. And Jesus, this one goes directly to your soul! Vibrating music from violinist and vocalist Voutchkova, an unknown musician for me. Because she combines violin and vocals, I immediately had to think of Iva Bittova. The more as both musicians integrate theatrical aspects in their work. But Voutchkova takes us to other, more extreme territories. She studied classical violin and became during this period engaged in improvised and modern music in New York. She is involved in several projects, duos (with Michael Thieke) and trios (with Ernesto Rodriguez and Micha Rabuske), some with a theatre or performance component, for example Pedesis, a trio with Markus Personen (guitar) and Tom Arthurs (trumpet), who we met recently in a duo with pianist Simon Vincent. ‘Modus of Raw’ is the first solo statement of Voutchkova and it is a very outspoken and personal statement, which was prepared and recorded in the Swiss Alps. Radical music as the title of the album suggests. In seven improvisations Voutchkova unfolds a world of very physical, uncompromising, improvisations. Abstract but also very expressive and dramatic, with lots of energy concentrated in each movement. The timbres, sound and colours she creates on her violin are of a baffling beauty! (DM) ––– Address: http://www.evilrabbitrecords.eu OGUZ BUYUKBERBER & SIMON NABATOV – WOBBLY STRATA (CD by Trytone) This is a beautiful first collaboration by Buyukberber and Nabatov. Turkish born musician Oğuz Büyükberber lives and works in Amsterdam. Pianist Nabatov comes from a musical Moscow family. He studied at the Moscow University and after the family moved to New York; he continued his studies at the Juilliard School of Music. He played with many, many improvisers from all over the world. He plays mainly jazz and improvised music, but also performs modern composed music. Also Büyükberber works with a pool of international musical from his base in Amsterdam where he studied with Harry Sparnaaij and Theo Loevendie. Like Nabatov he works within contexts of improvised as well as composed music. Turkish music is also an important source for him and can often be traced in his playing. Both gentlemen played with Gerry Hemingway in a trio initiated by Büyükberber in 2010. On ‘Wobbly Strata’ we find six improvisations, all recorded on October 26th, 2014 at Loft in Cologne. Solid and fresh improvisations with fine intertwined and communicative playing are to be enjoyed. They built interesting constructions, through their sparkling and focussed dialogues. The music swirls and rolls on thanks to their very flexible playing. Their playful and light-hearted interactions make this one a real joy to listen to. (DM) ––– Address: http://www.trytone.org TUNNELS OF ĀH - SURGICAL FIRES (CD by Cold Spring) BURIAL HEX - THRONE (CD by Cold Spring) Tunnels of Āh is Stephen R. Burroughs - better known as the vocalist of Head of David, the 'precursor to Godflesh'. This is his third album up to date, all of which were released by renowned UK-based label Cold Spring. What to expect? If you weren't already familiar with Burroughs' more recent output, this will be quite a change of pace and pose. From time to time we do get to hear what I assume is the heavily treated whispers originating from the good man's mouth, like on "Release of the Burning Mouths" - which is slightly reminiscent of Trepaneringsritualen - but there really isn't too much "vocal" going on - which is perhaps not what one might expect from a vocalist. Other exceptions are "My Love to the Lordly Cobras" and "Emission Through a Hole in the Head" that feature mangled whispers and with regard to the former a lament drenched in reverb. Composition- and sound-wise, “Surgical Fires” has a bit of a vintage 90s touch to it, which definitely isn't a bad thing if you know and love your Cold Meat classics. The album consists of eight atmospheric industrial/ noise tracks that, although there are some repetitive elements, never become as rhythmic as for instance a Brighter Dead Now. What we do get is a series of dystopian landscapes and vistas that leave you staring into the void for a good part of its 42-minute run. There's an interesting and well- balanced shift from the one atmosphere into the other and the sparse garbled whispers and vocal bits pull the album away from the desolate Cold Meat Industry camp somewhere halfway between that and World Serpent territory - with hints of C93 and Coil. The sickeningly prolific Burial Hex is of course the main guise of Clay Ruby. With such an extensive discography to his name, there’s bound to be a fair amount of releases that are not available any more, so a while ago Cold Spring began the noble and highly anticipated task of reissuing the Hex' long out of print collectibles as a series of compilation albums, of which “Throne” is the third instalment. You might know these pieces already and in that case it’s rather pointless to read on, as there’s really nothing more to it. For those who are not familiar with these early works, I’ll give a simple track by track rundown, which I think makes sense for something that was not originally intended as an actual album in the first place. The album commences with eponymous track “Throne” that was released on Aurora Borealis ages ago. Back then Burial Hex had a much more straightforward and monolithically abrasive sound, especially compared to the way in which it is all over the shop nowadays, but I often felt that the coarse industrial timbres and raw production overshadowed the compositional attainment. Still “Throne” is quite a harsh opener to a collection of tracks that is much more diverse as we shall see. The epic “The Coming of War” is a piece of relentless horror poetry; a wailing string section, desperately declaimed oratory pervaded by a horrifying ambience that suddenly comes to a rattling halt, gaspingly awaiting the advent of the inevitable dirge of death. The second track taken from the split LP with Iron Fist of the Sun is “Actaeon”: a dense death industrial track in the Swedish tradition that gives one the ominous sense of being hunted. It slowly moves towards a rhythmic climax that reveals the underlying predatory mechanics at work. “The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul” starts off as a dark droning piece of machinery that has shreds of choir whizzing about it until it slowly dies out and digresses into a festering and smoldering ambience eerily accompanied by the murmur of vocal synth pads… only to be revived into the body of Bocksholmish crushing automaton of distorted percussion. “Armagiddion” is the one piece that may just appeal to the fans of Ruby’s more recent work with its lofi drones and rivers of swirling piano. That is if you can take the torrent of violence that follows. So yes, if the eclectic paradigm on “The Hierophant” got you onto the Hex wagon, this release may not do it for you. Or it might just introduce you to the absorbing sonic palette of ritual and death industrial. Who knows. Just give it a go. (PJN) ––– Address: http://coldspring.co.uk/ BIRGIT ULHER & FELIPE ARAYA - REPLICA SCORIACON (CD by Inexhaustible Editions) Recently Birgit Ulher pointed out that I often spelled her name wrong; but I was in good company as more people made the same mistake of writing Uhler instead of Ulher. I hopefully will do better in the future. Ulher plays trumpet, radio, mini sound stations, speaker and objects and on the 15th of June 2015 she recorded with Felipe Araya in her own flat six pieces; Araya played Peruvian Cajon and objects. The Cajon is "nominally a box-shaped percussion instrument originally from Peru, played by slapping the front or rear faces (generally thin plywood) with the hands, fingers, or sometimes various implements such as brushes, mallets, or sticks", as Wiki explains. Knowing Ulher one expects and gets a disc of improvised music but if one expects to get something that uses a lot of rhythm, one is perhaps a little disappointed. The Cajon as played by Araya is the subject of objects being played on the surface; shuffling, vibrating, hitting (a bit), and with a wide variety of objects. I have no idea what these objects would be, but they surely have different surfaces, so the colour of the sound changes throughout these six pieces. Ulher plays her trumpet like she perhaps always does, which is as an object, rather than as an instrument. She adds her other instruments on the spot, and all of this gives a very vibrant interplay between these two players. Mostly careful but it never goes down to being very quiet, or beyond that. The rattling of objects in combination with some of the more sustaining scratches, peeps and feedback are delivered with much passion and flair. This is music from the world of improvisation but is very well at home in that of electro-acoustic music, and altogether an excellent release. (FdW) ––– Address: http://inexhaustibleeditions.bandcamp.com/ CARL STONE - ELECTRONIC MUSIC FROM THE SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES (3LP by Unseen Worlds) Over the years I reviewed a bunch of works by Carl Stone, among which was the excellent 'Woo Lae Oak', and yet somehow never seemed to get any grip on 'who is Carl Stone and what does he do?', and perhaps this set of three records with music from the seventies and eighties will provide some more answers. Primarily Stone uses electronic music and since 1986 he is busy with using computers. In the seventies I assume with good ol' Bucla synthesizers. There is not really a chronological order with these LPs, as you start with 'Sukothai' from 1977 and via pieces from 1986, 1982, 1984, 1981, and 1974 you end with 'Chao Praya' from 1973. I am not sure why this order was chosen, but perhaps there is not always a logical reason necessary. There are four groups of pieces here; the earliest two created by a Bucla 200 series synthesizer, one piece for tape recorders, three for a machine called the DHM 89 (manufactured by publison) and one piece for the Prophet 2002 sampler and Macintoh Plus and this time I did put in a chronological order. All but the two oldest pieces use sounds from others, like Henry Purcell's 'Abdelazer Suite: II. Rondeau' in 'Sukothai', Schubert lieder in 'Shing Kee' and pop and rock songs in 'Dong Il Jang' and 'Shinucho'. Only in 'Kuk Il Kwan' Stone uses his own field recordings and voice material. So, then, what do we hear? The trio of pieces made with the DHM 89 are in general quite a wild ride of sampled and plundered sound. Especially 'Shibucho' is a piece with fingers snapping and plundered pop archives - I believe I recognized the Jackson 5. In that piece, as well as 'Dong Il Jang', the sound is skipping all over the place, recognizable at times but sometimes quite abstract. It is in way to be compared with Oval, but without the shortish pop sensibility. All of the Stone's pieces are lengthy (except for those early ones) and quite rightly so; it is within this minimalism that his music makes perfect sense. Stone sets his pieces in motion and every now and then he gives a bang on the machine and it changes. 'Kuk Il Kwan', from the same series, is however a much more ambient pieces, with whispering voices, street sounds and other sources being used quite peacefully, with much slower development. No bang on the machine is needed to alter the sound, but here a gradual shift in processing the material takes place, and only in two places it becomes quite a loud. But all of three of the 'middle period' pieces are fine examples what this early work is about. If we then go all the way back to the early pieces we are less surprised. Stone, as a student of James Tenny and Morton Subotnick, produced two pieces for electronic drone sounds but essentially do not sound much different than the work of Pauline Oliveros or Eliane Radigue, but then much shorter. By no means two bad pieces, far from it, it's just that music like this is something we have heard before, and quite a bit of it. Which leaves two pieces; 'Sukothai' is a piece which starts out with the first few bars of Purcell's well-known piece (I knew it, but had to ask the composer, so much for 'well-known'), which is played on a harpsichord and then gets gradually layered, first mono, then stereo, then four, eight etc., up until there are 1024 layers, and for a long time the piece is easy recognized, but gradually all rhythm and cadenzas is removed and a noise remains, almost like a cluster being played on a church organ. In the digital download there is version, 'Unthaitled' from a year later, and twice as long which takes the rest of the piece at one point further down the line, and has the same creepy intensity as Wendy Carlos's title music of 'A Clockwork Orange'. 'Shing Kee', the most recent piece, is of all these pieces the most delicate one; the singing is slowly expanded and stretched out, almost in 'time-stretch' as-we-know-t kind of way, by slowly opening more and more the sample. It might be that technology by then allowed such smoothness. It forecasts already the later music of Stone already. This 3LP is a most welcome addition to the discography of Stone, and one that provides some fine introduction to his earlier work, and sheds a clear light on his development as a composer. This was already released last year and now is repressed again, due to high demand and quite rightly so. (FdW) ––– Address: http://unseenworlds.com NEU KONSERWATIW (LP compilation by Walter Ulbricht Schallfolien) We live in an increasingly conservative world, where old values are hailed as the best, protect and serve your nation, distrust anything that is not of your own ilk and populist thought. It's game on, one could say, if you want to start a punk band and fight all that. Or to start your own label, named after a dictator. But be aware that in 1980 Uli Rehberg started his Walter Ulbricht Schallfolien, named after the first president of former East Germany. Rehberg was responsible for LPs by SPK, Throbbing Gristle, Werkbund and Laibach in 1980s, and later on used his label to release many works of his own Ditterich von Euler-Donnersperg, but also Column One and [-Hyph-]. Neu Korservatiw (that's new conservatism, in case you were doubting it's meaning) has been the slogan of the label and in 2013 they existed for 33 years, so time for a little party, in the form of this compilation LP, with social realism artwork. None of the early groups are present, only German ones, such as Column One, [-Hyph-], Von Euler-Donnersperg and Werkbund, but also Asmus Tietchens (with two pieces), Evapori (also two), Pierce Warnecke and Margitt Holzt. It was a bit of puzzle what was what on the LP, or which side is A or B, but once you know (check Discogs for some help), you can play it. I sat back and didn't look at either vinyl or cover again, and curious enough I though that this LP sounded nothing like a compilation; it could as easily been the record by one person or group. While there are individual differences to be noted, everybody here seems to be using processed acoustic sound sources, and either bring round the block so they are no longer recognized as such, or looped around, feeding them through samplers and boxes but still recognizable as 'treated acoustic sounds'. Only the label boss brings voice to the table, and that's processed too. I must say I quite enjoyed this release but I am not sure what to make of this. Maybe there is some deliberate policy behind the fact that these pieces sound similar, perhaps the current trend not to be different from the rest? In the world of Uli Rehberg that is something that one should seriously consider. This is a beautiful record of experimental music, but as with all great art there is surely something to question here. Excellent! (FdW) ––– Address: http://walter-ulbricht.blogspot.com ANDREAS O. HIRSCH - ROW (LP by Makiphon) Although I drink it, do wash myself and can swim, I am otherwise not particularly fond of water; especially sailing and rowing I am terrified of. Here we have a recording about rowing, and that's not the first time; in Vital Weekly 144 we reviewed the compilation 'Oars With Ears: Attention: Go'. This time it is a record that is actually 8 people rowing (well, seven plus one steersman), and apparently Andreas O. Hirsch has recorded a whole bunch of versions of this piece. I am not sure how that works, as he is not listed among the rowers. Is he in inside the boat as well, or did he stick in a recorder? This version has a Dutch connection, as it was recorded aboard the ARAD, a lifeboat of the Dutch rowing team Roeiteam Terschelling Recreatie, up north where the brothers Kleefstra (see elsewhere) also live. On this record, forty minutes in total, we hear them rowing from the 'harbour of West-Terschelling out into the Wadden Sea and back again', and nothing. The repeating sounds of the oars, the water among the boat, have a highly minimal rhythm, which is exactly the idea of rowing: maintaining a steady speed. It does not become a dance record of any kind obviously, but it just has a very minimal drive to it. What makes it however even nicer is the presence of the commands by steersman Clees Plug (who died in 2013; recordings were made in 2011), whose commands are almost like vocals to the music. He too has repeating shouts and commands, which sound like soul/funk singer shouting out, but he's a bit far away in the recording and it becomes rather something of an additional rhythmic layer to the music. This is some highly conceptual record from the world of field recordings and it is also a highly fascinating piece of sound art. God beware that someone starts the remix project of this; let this be just a great record by itself. (FdW) ––– Address: http://makiphon.de BLUE CHEMISE - INFLUENCE ON DUSK (LP by Greedy Ventilator) Now here's something of the more obscure kind; obscure as 'there is next to nothing we want to reveal'. The label from down under doesn't have a website, or Bandcamp and can be contacted through Facebook (I am not sure how easy that is for those who are without Facebook), but in their various recent posts I learned nothing about the band Blue Chemise. Discogs reveal the existence of another release by them. That's it. The record, subtitled 'melancholy of the healthy kind', has fourteen pieces, all relatively short and to the point. The music seems to me all electronic and each of the pieces (simply called 'part 1', 'part 2' etc.) is to the point. It is not easy to say if we are dealing here with a band of some kind, or an one-person project; whether these are modular synthesizers, perhaps with the addition of feedback/saxophone (in 'part 10') or a more traditional set of laptop doodles. Blue Chemise's music doesn't sound harsh or distorted, despite me using the word feedback, but has all quite a relaxed quality to it. Ambient is a word that I feel is not very much out of place here, but Blue Chemise operate from a much more experimental side in their approach to that musical term. There is a fine use of odder sound sources, short loops and acoustic objects being treated, as well as the sound of dripping water, set against another finely woven carpet of synth based sounds, looped and processed feedback, to give the material more edge. All of this sound very delicate but as said not without certain sharpness; the idea is, so it seems, not to lull the listener into deep sleep, but to give him a most pleasant time, through meditation or just fine deep listening. An excellent record, but on the information side of things, there is certainly room for improvement. This record comes in a black sleeve with an add-on sticker and is released in an edition of merely 105 copies, so, who knows, an instant collectors item. This may be highly obscure but let music speak for itself and then a diamond shines. (FdW) ––– Address: https://www.facebook.com/greedyventilator BORIS HAUF - CLARK (LP by Shameless) NOISE WAR (5CD by Audio Dissection/Industrial Recollection) Ah, we're back on the subject of re-issues. Last week I wrote: 'There are all sorts of re-issues, obviously; there are those that one knows about from before but due to the obscurity never actually heard, there are total surprises and there are those that are very personal.' This week I should add 'and there are the ones that one has personal link to, via the music and there are re- issues, which one already reviewed before'. Let's start with the latter. Back in Vital Weekly 515 I already reviewed Boris Hauf's CDR release 'Clark', as released by the Sijis label. Last week Hauf asked me if I'd be interested in reviewing the LP re-issue of that. Sure why not? However, in such cases I look at the old review, even reprint it before updating my view. You could call that laziness, I know. So I wrote back then: "the activities of UK born world traveller Boris Hauf are numerous: playing with Efzeg, with TV Pow, with Lozenga and even a Berlin based classic rock cover band The Understated Brown, he also finds time to produce his own solo things. Armed with his laptop he sets out to produce a fine bunch of microsounding glitch ambient or whatever you call it, but here on 'Clark' he comes up with something that sidesteps that: his own version of techno music. Stripped bare of all unnecessary elements, adding his own sometimes creepy sounds, such as the high pitched frequencies in 'Hit Me With Your Pet Shark' (all titles seem to me related to popsongs, like 'Annie, Are You Puking On Elvis' or 'Ken Doll In The Wind'), which gives this dance music a weird twist and certainly makes this less useful for your next rave. It's more like after party music, when you have left the real party behind, and on a late night train going home, still being in the mood for some more techno related music. The train goes past sparsely lit cities with great speed and you can also sit down and listen, while your feet tap away with the rhythm. Certainly weird enough to be techno music, but it is pleasant enough to be throughout entertaining and breaking away from well-covered territories of microsound. Very nice indeed." The most curious thing about the new release is the change of titles. 'Hit Me' became 'Mind Tapes', 'Ken Doll' became 'Viĝlet Mĝĝn' and for the three pieces on the A-side timings are different. After twelve years I still think the weird twist doesn't make it easy to spin this at a party, even when 'Le Chien' comes quite close with a steady beat and sine waves and square notes (think Alva Noto, but slightly more chaotic), and we could wonder how little music progress has been made since then. I didn't contemplate that thought very much, but rather enjoyed this (again!), and thought the re-issue on vinyl makes a lot of sense. It has a great quality and doesn't sound dated at all, unlike some of the computer music that appeared a few years before that (say, roughly speaking, some of the releases by Ritornell or Meme), the technoid music of Hauf still sounds remarkable fresh; to me it seems like a wise decision to re-issue this. A personal link, via music, I found on the 5CD set 'Noise War'. At the very end of my studio career with a project called Kapotte Muziek (before it became an exclusive live concert concern) I was still working around with cassettes and handing out pieces for compilations. There are quite a few of these, ranging from 1984 to 1995, or possibly a bit later, and Discogs lists many of them. One of them was 'Disconnect' for Mother Savage Noise Productions, the label of Joseph Roemer and Rodger Stella. Somewhere a decade I loaned all my tapes to some active blog force and later on picked up the rumour that 'Noise War' was to be re-issued. I thought that I wasn't sure this was necessary, but now I have this box of 5 CDs on my desk, I think it looks great and I even considered for a moment how awesome it would be to have many more of those old compilations on CD. The original two-cassette package was twice a C90 cassette, so each side of those tapes fill up a single CD. The track list reads like an encyclopaedia of noise artists; Masonna, Merzbow, Incapacitants, Freudwerk, Illusion Of Safety, Mortal Vision, Taint, The Grey Wolves, Controlled Bleeding, Emil Beaulieu, Monde Bruits, Macronympha, Trance, Telecorps, Sudden Infant, C.C.C.C., Con-Dom, Kapotte Muziek, MSBR, Thirdorgan, The Haters, Onomatopeia, One Dark Eye, Evil Moisture, Solmania, David Gilden, Shockcity, 15961 4538, Grae.com and Mother Savage. All right, I'll admit that there are some lesser known gods present in this package. Much of this is a statement of bold, vicious, loud noise, predating by many years what we now call Harsh Noise Wall, but surely here we have those who laid the groundwork for that musical genre. Only very few moments are devoted to a piece of contemplation, such as the intro of Controlled Bleeding. As a bonus there is a thirty-one minute disc of five recent pieces (2013-2014), by Encephalophonic, Kazumoto Endo, Skin Crime, K2 and Sickness, who all perhaps show that there is new technology to record music like this, thus sounding even harsher, but otherwise it all sounds very much the same. That's three and half-hours of loud noise; I enjoyed it a lot and I need an aspirin. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.shamelessrecords.rocks ––– Address: http://audiodissection.blogspot.com COLDSORE - POLLUTANT (CDR by Totes Format) In Vital Weekly 1044 I first came across the music of Coldsore, which is the same guy as Totstellen and GRMMSK and here we have something political again, as the music deals with environmental pollution. The first edition apparently contained toxic materials, but the one I have here is a regular edition. It says on the cover: "recorded in 2016, while digging out from the ruins of TEPCO's Daiichi NPP. We hear the sounds from under the debris inside the slowly collapsing sarcophagus containing reactor 4. COLDSORE uses mostly handmade electronic equipment: sound generators and - deformers powered by disastrous memories of the future and dirty electricity", so you never know what is really true about such things, but I am sure there is a genuine concern here. In the pieces they use cold synth bleeps, airy electronics and sometimes a bit of voices, all to mark off a sense of a post nuclear landscape, via some nicely primitive ambient industrial music. Music, in general, which slowly builds up with some shimmering frequencies to make up a sense of violence and treat. I say 'primitive' to indicate the kind of instruments they are using here. I would think much of this comes through a bunch of humming monotrons and a couple of stomp boxes, plus perhaps a 2-bit sampler, older than the current owner and full of dust; all neatly taped on a cassette for that extra layer of roughness, which is not lost in translation back to the CDR. The website mentions this as fifty-minute tape, but I have here a sixty-three minute CDR; the final piece being a twenty-two minute live recording at the Anarchist Black Cross in Helsinki, in which everything goes up a bit and the group/project sounds a tad more industrial. This is surely a sonic wake-up call. (FdW) ––– Address: http://totes-format.weebly.com/ FJORDNE & STABILO - ANDREW (CDR by Sound In Silence) This is a very limited edition (150 copies) and rather short (twenty-two minutes) album. Two short pieces by Fjordne (or FJORDNE as is the preferred way of writing), also known as Fujimoto Shunichiro and Stabilo (or stabilo as is the preferred way of writing), of which Yasutica Horibe is the mastermind. The first is from Tokyo and the second from Hiroshima. The first has two pieces, clocking less than four minutes and the latter two that are just over seven minutes. Both musicians are also active in other projects and bands, including a postroc/shoegaze one for Horibe. On this EP they explore the realm of ambient music but with a strong classical music touch. In the case of Fjordne it is very much about the use of the piano, which is on top of whatever else Fjordne adds to his music. These might be time stretched field recordings of a fun fair in 'Acquainted', or the use of reverb to colour the overall sound, but it sounds all very intimate. 'Andrew' is the more subdued piece, and 'Acquainted' it's livelier brother. 'As Well' and 'Alison' by Stabilo also use piano but then buried a bit inside the music, surrounded by clouds of field recordings, which by itself are surrounding by active forces of reverb, delay and perhaps a dash of granular synthesis. It gives the music a somewhat more drone like character, and given the length of these pieces, that time is well spend in these pieces. It's all highly atmospheric and spacious; reminding obviously of some of the Eno/Budd collaborations, and of current day piano players, such as Nils Frahm or Federico Durand. This is an excellent release, but oh so short. Way too short, I would say. I wouldn't have minded four of these pieces, by each of these players. (FdW) ––– Address: http://soundinsilencerecords.bandcamp.com/album/andrew BRAIN DRAIN - RECORDED FUTURE (cassette, private) Adam McFillin is from Brisbane and he calls himself Barin Drain. On his bandcamp I see he has some older releases as well. McFillin plays electric guitar and sings, releasing his music on cassette. That's it. I find all of that very sympathetic, but I am listening to this, and I must say this is not really something for Vital Weekly. It is all well played, singer-songwriter material and it may very well be all 'about uncertainty, isolation, resentment, disappointment and struggle', but here at VW we love our music to be strange, different, atmospheric, weird, avant-garde even, noisy, very quiet, or whatever else, as long as it doesn't sound too much like something we've already heard before, down the pub, on a festival or is perhaps down to the world of rock and pop music. I may be wrong, and missing a point, but this is just not something for us. (FdW) ––– Address: http://braindrain.bandcamp.com/ |