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number 1093
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week 32 ---------------------
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week 33: no Vital Weekly week 34: we hope to return to out Tuesday schedule LARRY POLANSKY - FREEHORN (CD by Cold Blue Music) * DANIEL LENTZ - RIVER OF 1,000 STREAMS (CD by Cold Blue Music) * STEPHEN WHITTINGTON - WINDMILL (CD by Cold Blue Music) * SHARIF SEHNAOUI & ADAM GOLEBIEWSKI - MEET THE DRAGON (CD by Uznam) * TASADAY - L'ANIMALE PROFONDO (CD by Officina Fonografica Italiana) * T.A.C. - SYMPHONIE INDUSTRIELLE (CD by Officina Fonografica Italiana/Spittle Records) * CULPHO DOG GYMKHANA - CULPHO DOG GYMKHANA #1 (CD Cordelia Records) KRAFT - HARVEST OF DESPAIR (CD by Opa Loka Records) * ECHOES OF YUL - THE HEALING SESSIONS (CD by Zoharum) * PHURPA - YA TOG RID PA'I GVER (2CD by Zoharum) * PHURPA - RITUALS OF BÖN II (LP by Zoharum) GÜNTER SCHLIENZ - BOOK OF DREAMS (CD by Zoharum) * TIM OLIVE & JIN SANGTAE - NAAR/VOOR (CD by 845 Audio) * ESM - NESMYSL (CD, private) * REGLER - BLUES FOR WESTERN CIVILIZATION (LP by At War With False Noise) THE NEW MOVEMENT & KH12 QUARTET - NICHTS FUR NITSCH (LP by Psych KG) BLUE CHEMISE (7" by Il Dischi Del Barone) GLANDS OF EXTERNAL SECRETION (7" by Il Dischi Del Barone) ARV & MILJÖ (cassette by Il Dischi Del Barone) TOAN - HISTOS LUSIS (CDR by Eilean Records) * JOSCO & SPHERULEUS - FOLDED DISTANCE (CDR by Eilean Records) * BRB>VOICECOIL - RECONFIGURE MOMENTS (cassette by Muzamuza) * BRB>VOICECOIL - CONTAINMENT (cassette by Muzamuza) * ARTWHORE - PASTY POSTURE (cassette by Muzamuza) * CHANNELERS - FACES OF LOVE (cassette by Inner Islands) LARRY POLANSKY - FREEHORN (CD by Cold Blue Music) DANIEL LENTZ - RIVER OF 1,000 STREAMS (CD by Cold Blue Music) STEPHEN WHITTINGTON - WINDMILL (CD by Cold Blue Music) The name Larry Polansky is more familiar with me than I actually know his music, even when I reviewed his music before, albeit a long time ago ('Four Voice Canons' in Vital Weekly 346). What I do know is that he's well known for his work in the field of computer music, creating the computer music software language HMSL and theorizing about computer and music but he also plays guitar and mandolin. On the three pieces on 'Freehorn' (or rather 'freeHorn') there is just computer in the title piece and I believe not in the other two pieces. The title piece spans two-third of the entire (thirty-two minute) release and it's a small chamber orchestra of piano, trumpet, electric guitar, violin, cello, tenor saxophone and horn plus of course the computer playing a very moody piece. Maybe it is the use of the horn, but in an odd way I reminded of the music of Architects Office, but then without voices and much better recorded; nevertheless there was a similar moody atmosphere, an excellent slowness about this, which I enjoyed very much. Music for an endless slow, warm summer's day. The other two pieces sees Giacomo Fore on guitar and Polansky on fretless electric guitar on one piece and electric guitar on the other. 'ii-v-i' is a "continuous modulation between different harmonic series" (just like the title piece, apparently; I hadn't noted) and is a more hectic piece, but both gentlemen keep things very civilized. 'Minmaj' is a very quiet piece that ends this release and passes without too much notion, which is a pity. With 'freeHorn' being such a fine and long piece I am still quite pleased with this. Followed by the music of Daniel Lentz, who is a regular contributor to the catalogue of Cold Blue Music (see Vital Weekly 964, 663, 519 and 433), as well as performing works by Chas Smith. Many of works deal with the piano and 'River Of 1,000 Dreams' is not different. Just like Polansky there is also a computer aspect to it, but had not I read that on the information, I would probably not have noticed it. This is work for "solo piano and up to 11 layers of 'cascading echoes' (which are created in a live performance via a computer running a MAX patch). Each of the piece's hundreds of 'echoes' is a short moment (generally one to a few bars in length) of the piano solo that may reappear anywhere from a half-second to 25 minutes after the pianist first plays it", so how does that work out? The piece is just under twenty-nine minutes in length the aspect of cascading sounds is surely something that one recognizes from the music, like waves rolling on a beach. At times very densely layered and quite dark but always it seems to be played out and it becomes more open and we hear a lighter, clearer piano, almost solo (or perhaps that should: really solo) with faster notes and it almost becomes an entirely different piece of music. The ending is a bit odd I think, but perhaps it is also a bit premature; I wouldn't have minded this to last longer than it does now, as it was working beautifully, inspired by the Yellowstone River, and that's something one fully understand when one hears this music. The Zephyr Quartet performs the music Australia's Stephen Whittington, and it's the release of this trio of new releases by Cold Blue Music that I found the most difficult to write about. There are many Chinese references here to ancient poets, Zen and such like, and the music is, to these untrained ears (easily admitted), fairly traditional modern classical music. Introspective but not always 'quiet'. There are two pieces here, '… From A Thatched Hut', in seven parts, and 'Windmill', about life in Australia and how many survived over the years in what is called 'an inhospitable climate'. That piece, with its minimally changing, staccato string work, I liked quite a bit; it reminded me indeed of a windmill, cracking it's mill in the wind, like a rusty memory of ancient days in a dry and wooden land. There is a bit of dissonance in this piece, which is also highly enjoyable. The seven other pieces, making up for two-third of the release I found more traditional playing about which I have not a lot to say, really. It is quite nice, but I have no idea how to comment on this any further. Check it out for yourself is probably my best advice. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.coldbluemusic.com SHARIF SEHNAOUI & ADAM GOLEBIEWSKI - MEET THE DRAGON (CD by Uznam) It's been a while, so I believe, that I last heard from Shariff Sehnaoui, especially when it comes to having an important role in a small improvising group, like here with Polish drummer Adam Golebiewski, of whom, au contraire, we hear more and more (see for instance Vital Weekly 1005, 1015 and 1076). In February 2015 Sehnaoui picked up his acoustic guitar and Golebiewski sat behind his drum, cymbal and selected objects and the two began improvising. I have no idea if there has been any additional editing in this material or that we have here a complete registration of the proceedings that day in Poznan, Poland. What we find on this disc is a forty-six minute tour de force of guitar and drums. There is hardly any conventional rhythm and yet there are many 'other' rhythms here. Whatever Sehnaoui uses to play his guitar is from other objects. He rarely, so it seems, picks up the guitar to play it like we expect from free improvised music (providing of course there is a guidebook at all how to play 'proper free jazz'). Sehnaoui rattles small chains over the strings, adding another layer of rhythm over what Golebiewski is already doing with his objects on the drum skins and cymbals. They scratch and hit surfaces in a very direct approach, and while some of the music goes down in volume every now and then, 'silence' is a notion that does not sit well with these two men. They rather play upfront and 'loud', even when it never becomes 'noise'. But the massive strokes on their instruments come with a certain forced power; like they have very little respect for their instruments, which is something I enjoyed very much. Especially in the first twelve minutes they create a hell of a racket, which reminded me of an acoustic approach to the sound of The New Blockaders, sans feedback, and creating similar sound work using acoustic instruments played bluntly with those objects. This is an excellent release of hard core improvisation. (FdW) ––– Address: http://uznam.bandcamp.com TASADAY - L'ANIMALE PROFONDO (CD by Officina Fonografica Italiana) T.A.C. - SYMPHONIE INDUSTRIELLE (CD by Officina Fonografica Italiana/Spittle Records) All the time I was playing this CD by Tasaday I tried remembering whether or not I saw them play live in 1986, at a festival that also included SBOTHI, Etant Donnes and Coup de Grace. It was two days, but Tasaday was on the first night, and perhaps I was there only the second? (Check out this: http://v2.nl/events/metabletica). After 31 years my memory is certainly not as good anymore. I believe I did hear some of their work at that time, and I do remember not being blown away. Tasaday was an experimental group from Italy who worked more inside rock music than I liked in the 80s, but opening up this package I must admit I was curious enough to see how they held up over time. I must say not bad at all. There is a certain industrial rock edge to this music that was perhaps not common in the deep world of cassette only release that was very much the world I was interested in, even when early Tasaday releases were on cassette also. But certainly the rock line up with tapes mixed in remind the listener of Laibach and perhaps also Einstürzende Neubauten (think odd percussion, maybe even a bit of metal banging of their own), combined with stabs of electronics that we could regard as more traditional industrial music throughout make this quite a nice release. One thing that didn't win me over then as well as now is the use of the voice. It is not that these lyrics are in Italian (I should think), but the way they are shouted around, through a bunch of delay pedals, adding perhaps a mystic, ritualistik element to the music is just not very well spend on me, but in a way seems very Italian (think Sigillum S, F.A.R. or Ain Soph). Probably it's either resisting catholic upbringing or celebrating an obscure variation thereof. You never know. T.A.C. stands for Tomografia Assiale Computerizzata, which stands for "the medical imaging device Computed Tomography (CT)". This band started in 1981 with five members Andrea Azzali, Simon Balestrazzi, Giorgio Barbuti, Fabio Cortesi and Giampaolo Terenziani but later on other people joined, including Massimo Pavarini (see also Vital Weekly 1033). This was a band that passed me by at the time, but I am not sure why. I am sure I must have some of their music, as I am sure I had various compilations featuring their music. Somehow it must have failed to impress me I guess at the time and I didn't further investigate it. I learned from the booklet that in 1985 Andrea Azzali and Simon Balestrazzi were the only two members that were left from the original line-up, which they decided was a good moment to start playing music that was different from their earlier more industrial rock approach and in a short time span they worked on the 'Symphonie Industrielle', by splicing tape loops and sounds together from the vast archive of band recordings they already had. The project was never finished as in June 1985 they had new members and the sound again changed. So it is not easy to judge the recently salvaged 'Symphonie Industrielle' as part of the entire band history, but maybe more as some oddity in between, and such it is not easy for me to judge this, partly because I am so unaware of their other releases. Shimmering throughout these eight pieces one probably hears the original band playing, such as in the fifth part of the symphony, but then looped around and added with a whole bunch of new synthesizer treatments. In other pieces these treatments come to the foreground and the group plays something that is more along the lines of experimental electronics of the day, with a meandering trumpet hovering about from a previous session (the sixth part for instance). Sometimes these pieces seem a bit too loosely structured for my taste, and the wanderings in the world of electronics don't seem to go anywhere, but that is, of course, also very much a marking on the time in which this was created, which perhaps is a most valid excuse. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.goodfellas.it/ CULPHO DOG GYMKHANA - CULPHO DOG GYMKHANA #1 (CD Cordelia Records) Eh? It would seem this album documents (future and past) experiments in multi-dimensional parallel-worlds sound recording pioneered by Culpho Dog Gymkhana at the University in Culpho last year. The members of Culpho Dog Gymkhana wish to remain anonymous, but have given themselves, for practical purposes, ‘stage names’ such as The Rat, The Rabbit, The Wasp and The Mole. So there are four. As in the typical four members of any classic pop band (The Beatles, The Residents and so on). Interesting is that The Wasp is identified as female. Anyways, the four met over their mutual love of Experimental Surf Music, which was, as you will perhaps recall was previously discussed in Vital Weekly. On this album the CDG explore the endless possibilities of making music by using existing band recordings combined with elements of the same recording sourced from several parallel worlds where different decisions were made during the compositional and recording process. I am sure you are still with me. The members of CDG were also able to physically travel to targeted parallel dimensions, causing challenging situations such as a recording session inside the stomach of a giant crocodile. Add to the confusion the fact there were (are? will be?) two parallel members called The Rabbit and you have a possibly explosive situation. So much for background information. In a parallel review of this album I will be discussing the fact that I think the cover of this album is ugly. The resulting album by CDG features two 20-minute tracks ‘Have you seen your macaroni, Chimp?’ and ‘Everything has moved two feet to the left’. The album concludes with the much briefer track ‘Ursonate III (featuring Kurt Schwitters)’. As I am sure you will agree in a parallel universe, theorizing about music is best left to people like Frank Zappa, who built a semi-interesting career on the back of expressing his opinion about music in music. So what do the GDC actually has to offer? The synthesizer intro on ‘Have you seen your macaroni, Chimp?’ soon gives way to the Experimental Surf Music, which we have heard before on Cordelia records. It’s instrumental surf music, with plenty of Fender Jaguar lead guitar, which in its turn soon gives way to a long composition of synthesizer weirdness from some (or perhaps any) parallel universe. In that sense I am remembered of the long collage ‘The octagonal rabbit surplus’, which is not incidentally also my favourite track from the Deep Freeze Mice’s 1979 debut album, where the combination of traditional songs with the electronic collages in one long collage works is sheer brilliance. Maybe in the parallel world of the CDG they went forward to 1979 and remixed and reworked (or premixed and pre-worked) those sessions. ‘Everything has moved two feet to the left’ also combines the Experimental Surf Music to great effect with field recordings, discussions between CDG-members and more electronic sounds creating some really good ambient soundscapes. The final track ‘Ursonate III (featuring Kurt Schwitters)’ does indeed feature a future performance of Schwitters reciting his famous 1920’s Dada-poem set to a rhythm box and assorted odd sounds. It’s strangely appealing. Much, in fact, as this album. In mixing these different elements of music, the CDG are perhaps not unique, but they are one of few bands I know who actually get away with it. Of course, selling millions of CDs and playing intra- galactic sell out shows in parallel universes does help pay their (future) bills. To help them out in their parallel universe in Leicester, England you could do worse than to order a copy of the first Culpho Dog Gymkhana album. It really is very good. (FK) ––– Address: http://www.cordeliarecords.co.uk KRAFT - HARVEST OF DESPAIR (CD by Opa Loka Records) Robert Hofman hails from Rotterdam, where he is a member of Osewoudt, which was "received very well in the Neo-folk scene", so perhaps that accounts for the fact that I had not heard from him or his band before. Since there weren't many live shows he started to work on a solo recording, which became Kraft, and 'Harvest Of Despair' is his first solo album. It is inspired by a love for the music of Muslimgauze and also the struggle in Ukraine, which is one of the main topics of the album. Hofman plays all the instruments himself (accordions, keyboards, drums, percussion, sampling, field recordings and lyrics), but gets help from Stefan Hayes (acoustic guitars), Dennis Lamb (electric guitars), Richard Leviathan (vocals) and Kateryna Vinitskyi (vocals). One could say this is not really my cup of tea and you're probably right with all things you think I would not like, such as neo folk or political statements (or maybe even Muslimgauze), but whatever Hofman took out of the work of Muslimgauze, it doesn't show that much. Surely there is percussion here, with heavy amount of reverb, some of dub inspired song, as 'Gold Into Lead', but one could not easily recognize Muslimgauze in this. The music is dark, atmospheric and besides some solemnly spoken in 'The Dreadful Hours' it hardly sounds like neo-folk (or perhaps I have the wrong impression of the genre). The music is more collage like, taking influences from various genres and countries, which act like a melting pot here; some Slavonic chant, a dub piece, rattling drums and noise guitars in 'The Dreadful Hours', or the more melancholic 'Maugre'. It is not really abstract and alien, but in some ways one could see the background in rock-oriented bands shining through the sometimes-melodic soundscapes. Quite a varied bunch of songs on this album, but it all together makes quite a coherent listening. (FdW) ––– Address: http://opa-loka-records.com ECHOES OF YUL - THE HEALING SESSIONS (CD by Zoharum) PHURPA - YA TOG RID PA'I GVER (2CD by Zoharum) PHURPA - RITUALS OF BÖN II (LP by Zoharum) GÜNTER SCHLIENZ - BOOK OF DREAMS (CD by Zoharum) Hey, didn't we already review a CD called 'The Healing' by Echoes Of Yul, the musical project of Michal Sliwa? Yes, we did, back in Vital Weekly 1004. Sliwa recorded so much material, that he also released a cassette back then, 'The Healing Sessions', in an edition of 50 copies, which became a sought after collectors item. Now it is re-issued on CD for a wider audience to enjoy. It expands further on what we already heard on 'The Healing'; slow, dub like rhythm, heavy in origin, like in the best tradition of trip-hop. Real drums, me thinks, as well as real guitars and bass, along with a bit of synthesizers and effects. Think Scorn, think the Wordsound label, maybe Bowery Electric; god, it all seems so long ago that I properly heard this kind of music. The guitars are played with much gusto and again one thinks post-rock, krautrock and psychedelica, but perhaps with even some more dub inspired rhythm this time around. The music is melodic despite it's heaviness and it works really well. While this is perhaps not something I seem to be playing every day/not as much as I did, I thought this was really great music. And what I wrote before is still valid; I have no idea if Echoes Of Yul is something that Sliwa wants to do in concert, but I think he should. I can imagine this stuff sounding massive on a really good sound system; perhaps that is the one downside to this. The home entertainment system may not do this entirely justice. Heavy and dark are keywords to the music of Phupra, but that's something I already knew. I am sitting, sweating in the HQ with Bermuda shorts, cold drink and blazing sun outside thinking this might not be the entirely right moment of the year to play the music of Phurpa. Let alone a double CD and a LP, which is surely some 140 minutes listening to crossing the Styx, going into an underworld. The music is spiritual and sacred and they use 'rgyud-skad' singing, which sounds to me, not a connoisseur per se, as throat singing. This comes along with the rattling of metallic percussion, even when in the two parts of 'Ya Tog Rid Pa'i Gyer' the emphasis is altogether more on the use of voices by the various members. The voices sound like they were recorded in a cave, deep down under the ground and we watch from distance as some ritual is going on. On the LP is all about the magical practices in Tibet, Iran and even (words from Zoharum) Egypt, with more percussion than the double CD. I played all of this with interest, and I actually do enjoy it, but I feel I will always remain an outsider to this music. Not being religious at all, or very much interested in the whole world of rituals, magical caves and what not, there is a side to all of this that eludes me. I can imagine that other people would strongly oppose me and that's fine. I must also admit I don't hear that much differences between the various releases of Phurpa, but surely playing new tunes is not an objective of the group. After all this heaviness and darkness it is time for some gentle music. Back in Vital Weekly 1056 I was very much surprised and taken by the CD 'Autumn' by German modular synth player Günter Schlienz, who now returns with a new album, 'Book Of Dreams', with more pieces, nine in total. Parts of this was first released on vinyl, but now expanded with more tracks. Zoharum calls this music at 'the intersection of ambient and new age' and that is very much true. With the previous release I was thinking about ambient in the finest tradition of Brian Eno, and thus firmly rooted in the world of ambient music, but with some of these pieces Schlienz moves a bit closer to the world of new age music, which for all I know and care, is something he should not do. A piece like 'The Female Coffee Drinking Dwarf' (a silly title I'd say) with it's soft tinkling bell synth sound is simply too easy and too sweet for my taste, but it is followed by ''Kafkaesque Speeches', a lovely dark drone with a soaring synth melody on top. It is limping on both ends here, the softer new age approach and the somewhat grittier ambient side, and for now, I'd like to give Schlienz the benefit of doubt here. The music is still lovely shimmering ambient, I am still reminded of De Muziekkamer and their 'Kamer Muziek' release, and that is enough for now. I am curious which road Schlienz will take in the future. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.zoharum.com TIM OLIVE & JIN SANGTAE - NAAR/VOOR (CD by 845 Audio) Much if not all of the work of Tim Olive are in collaboration with other people, and preferable, so it seems in concert. Every year or so he travels from his new home country Japan to Europe to tour, with people like Takuji Naka (in 2016) and Anne-F Jacques (2017) or in Japan with people like Ben Owen and Nick Hoffman. Or in this case Korea's Jin Sangtae, who is part of the scene around the Balloon & Needle label, known for their heavy approach to the world of improvised music. Sangtae is someone who uses near death hard drives in his music, crackling and bursting with the final shot of electricity massively amplified. Olive on the other hand rummages the kitchen sink in search for objects onto which he places his magnetic pickups and amplifies these as well. Both of these players use ordinary objects, which are far away from the world of conventional instrumentation. Here we have three lengthy pieces, fifty-four minutes in total, of some great music. They cover the entire dynamic spectrum, with lengthy passages being all loud and brutal, but also going all quiet, and all of this in a very fine collage-like approach, cutting in and out of the mix, going from zero to one hundred, as it were. There is some excellent beauty in this brutal work; brutal but not necessarily very noisy, I would say. It makes that you start listening differently to the world around you, I guess (maybe providing you never heard this kind of stuff of course); at one point I thought my disc was slipping in the machine, but it turned out this was part of the bigger picture. Lovely stuff, beautiful poetics of the ordinary world in a new context. (FdW) ––– Address: http://845audio.org ESM - NESMYSL (CD, private) "Free form improvisation in avantgarde jESM" is how Eventualni Slozeni Muzikantu, in short ESM, describe their music, and in the somewhat hand painted package we find a pro-pressed CD, with three pieces. The first piece is the shortest and last seven and half minutes. Much of the information on the cover is in the Czech language and therefore difficult to access for me. The first piece is solely made of voices, layered and it might be Czech talk, but it also reminded me of the music of Kurt Schwitters' 'Ursonate'. Quite nice. The second piece is at thirty-one minutes the longest and more or less a free jazz improvised piece for bass, drums and synthesizers. It starts and it stops and in between there is very little room for change. Everyone plays their own part, and the electronics may seem to get a bit more intense, a bit more distortion pedal work on that, but the bass and drums keep playing that irregular free jazz work. Just two minutes shorter is 'Zlive/Mrdve V Studiu Pon Terex', and had it not be for this piece, I would have let this to Dolf Mulder to chew on this release, but I am pretty sure the close to thirty minutes of noise here would not really be his cup of tea. Everything explodes in this piece and if there are drums and/or bass used we hardly recognize it. A barrage of electronic transformations is used to transform each and every sound while trying to retain that collage like approach of sounds cutting in and out. I liked those long pieces, but not in this extended version. I would think it could have been twenty minutes and I'd be happier with that. Sometimes one has to know when it becomes too much, I would think. (FdW) ––– Address: http://bandzone.cz/merzbauten REGLER - BLUES FOR WESTERN CIVILIZATION (LP by At War With False Noise) With Regler exploring per release a whole musical genre, such as free jazz (see Vital Weekly 957), dub (see Vital Weekly 966), harsh noise wall (see Vital Weekly 983), classical music (see Vital Weekly 1015), Metal (see Vital Weekly 1034) it is now time for blues. I am not sure if Regler do what I do if I don't know the answer, which asking the oracle, also known as Wikipedia; "Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society." On September 23, 2016 the duo of Mattin (on guitar) and Anders Bryngelsson (on drums) played at Urban Spree in Berlin, and perhaps this is AAB pattern; how I do know, not being musical at all in that respect, with some taped spoken word, audience interference and brutal approach to drums and guitar. I am not sure, but to me it hardly seems like conventional blues music, which of course is totally fine. I do like the rough and punky approach of these players very much though; there is a fine sense of urgency in this concert, whether one calls this blues or not. I wonder which genre they will examine next. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.atwarwithfalsenoise.com/ THE NEW MOVEMENT & KH12 QUARTET - NICHTS FUR NITSCH (LP by Psych KG) 'Nichts Für Nitsch'? That reeks of The New Blockaders, I would think, but it is not; The New Movement, a duo of Kenny Johansson and Tony Eriksson are however strongly inspired by the Blockaders, as I read on Discogs: "Inspired by anti-'artists' like Marcel Duchamp, Luigi Russolo and The New Blockaders the group emerged from the intention to create a new form of anti-art with a nostalgic feeling but soon moved further into the 'philosophy of nothing' and they wrote the manifesto 'X' even before they ever recorded something in the name of The New Movement. With their manifesto TNM 'stand their ground' to reject and destroy everything for their 'philosophy of nothing' and to be pointless as their weapon of choice", which reads to me like something them Blockaders could have also written. KH12 Quartet is also a duo, Matthias Horn (also the label boss here) and Phillip Zimmermann and in Sweden the four of them recorded this tribute to Hermann Nitsch, the infamous Austrian performance artist, with whom I have absolutely nothing at all. I could launch into a diatribe about performance art, but I will save that for another day. Like I wrote last week about the Blockaders I like a bit of noise, and this is what we get here, as not just the manifesto is copied also their approach to sound is surely a strong source of inspiration. Acoustic objects are hand cranked in front of a microphone and then fed through a bunch of sound effects, while the original bursts of acoustics remain intact. In fact more here than on the latest Blockaders cassette, I would think. No doubt the musicians cringe over me saying this, but it seems to me some thought went into producing these noise pieces, of cracking acoustic objects, loops of metallic rumble and spacing out distortion over the pieces itself. I am not sure, but surely this is music that mister Nitsch would like as a backdrop to his performances as it sounds like the sound of destruction and decay. Me personally, I don't need the performance aspect at all; not even the 'blood' spattered picture disc; the noise that is captured in these grooves is more than enough for me. Stick to what you best and leave out the rest I would say. A bit short this LP, it seems, but quite lovely all around. (FdW) ––– Address: <psychkg@online.de> BLUE CHEMISE (7" by Il Dischi Del Barone) GLANDS OF EXTERNAL SECRETION (7" by Il Dischi Del Barone) ARV & MILJÖ (cassette by Il Dischi Del Barone) Of the last two I did hear before, but not of the Australia's Blue Chemise, who apparently released a "gone-in-a-heartbeat 'Influence On Dusk' LP from early 2017", so with that missed heartbeat I have no point of reference probably, but 'The Music Lesson' on side A sounds great; a bit lo-fi with some scratchy tapes of obscured field recordings, and amplified hiss while some violin playing is also happening. Make that perhaps three violins each playing their own soaring note. There is a bit of percussion like sounds in there as well. The other side sees 'Watcher At The Window', with a slightly cruder approach to the use of tapes, which might very well what all of the sounds are about, cleverly mixed together. Some sort of wind chimes at half speed and the crackling objects in a room disturbing every now and then; a music box caught some rust sometimes also joins in. Crude yet elegant, which is something that can be said for both sides. Lovely lo-fi! Varbara Manning (guitar, organ, banjo, objects, percussion, voice) and Seymour Glass (objects, loops, electronics, cassettes, guitar, piano, voice) I heard for the first time back in Vital Weekly 1075 and was pleasantly surprised by their cassette and I can easily imagine the 7" being a very good format for their music. Their pieces can be short and to the point, and also they can be pieces, as opposed to long pieces faded in and out to fit on a 7". Their music uses loops of sounds, usually from the many instruments mentioned and on top of that they wave together cut up of voices saying weird things (on 'Backlit Colander With Holes Shaped Like Numbers') along with cut-ups of those looped instruments going in and out of the mix, while on 'Bok Choy Festival' everything is tighter together with loops of mumbling voices and a more singular use of electronics throughout the piece. Only towards the end a stringed instrument comes in. Two different pieces, both are heavily inspired by nurse With Wound I would think, and both pieces are very lovely. Arv & Miljö had their 7" before on this label (see Vital weekly 1024) and now they have this cassette (a first for this label I believe), which is, I believe, a re-issue of a LP released by Förlag För Fri Musik in 2016. The label describes as "Snippets of boredom, heart attacks, disgusting food, “När vi två blir en”, Dan Treacy meets Birgitta Stenberg and the coming of age, assembled into some sort of nonlinear and rather dizzy audio diary that will speak to few. 50% dumb shit, 20% other people’s music, 29% larger-than-life grandiosma, 1% Swedish tape noise", which is quite funny, perhaps. Maybe this description is something that distracts me a bit as I am pretty much clueless about what it is that I am hearing here, let alone which pieces I am hearing anyway. Sometimes I could easily believe that this is something that Arv & Miljö actually play on instruments, organ drones for instance, or some kind of field recordings they made, but for all I know this could also contain bits of sound that are lifted from other people's records, slowed down, pitched up and altered in whatever way. This is all very much like two sides of one long collage in sound, like an alternative radio running wild but never really hits a musical groove. Odd but nice. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.iddb.se/ TOAN - HISTOS LUSIS (CDR by Eilean Records) JOSCO & SPHERULEUS - FOLDED DISTANCE (CDR by Eilean Records) Opening up 'Histos Lusis' in iTunes says that is filed under rap, which scared me, but I realized that Eilean Records would never release rap music. Toàn is from France, living in Britain and also creates beat based music "mixing jazz and hip hop influences under the pseudonym of Qiwu Selftet", but none of that on this release. There aren't even any synthesizers on this album, as the whole thing, all eight pieces, was composed from taking samples from old records, live instruments and field recordings. The pieces are lengthy, somewhere between six and twelve minutes (more six really) and operate all within the genre of ambient music, but then in the sub department of all things being melodic. The music Eno did with people like Hassell and Budd seem to be a point of departure here. There is quite some piano and violin sounds here, both of them played by real people as opposed to sampling them from battered old records. Those sounds provide crackles, drones and something that makes it sound 'old' in a way, almost like listening to something that has been ripped from a vinyl release from thirty or more years ago. The overall moody, textured pieces owe to the world of modern classical music, but also something that is a bit like world music, found on 78 rpm shellac at times (or so it sounds) and field recordings are added when needed; it doesn't rain throughout, which is very fine. The overall tone may be a bit dark but there is something quite relaxing about this music also. I had the impression of being on a trip, down some tropical stream, slow and gently down the stream, into a hot tropical forest; all in black and white and the calendar says it's 1925. Sometimes a bit too sweet perhaps, but great it is anyway. The other new release is a collaboration between Josco, who "is a writer, photographer and sound designer from the Republic of Ireland. He is currently based in China" and Spheruleus, also known as "Harry Towell, a UK sound artist who has recorded with labels such as Hibernate, Home Normal, Under The Spire and Time Released Sound. Harry has a long standing netlabel called Audio Gourmet but also runs physical edition labels Tessellate Recordings and most recently, a special collector's imprint called Whitelabrecs". They worked together on this for about five years and I would think all of this working together was down through the exchange of sound files through the Internet. I must admit I was not able to tell this was the work of five years of working together, but alas the music was quite nice. Obviously also along the lines of ambient music, but hey, this is Eilean Records and this is music that is very much along the lines of whatever else they release. Mood music of course, but then from a more abstract angle and with heavily processed field recordings, lots of reverb, the tinkling of a guitar and the singular stroke of a cello here and there. Field recordings, we are told, were made in Thailand, Turkey, Austria, UK, Ireland and Morocco, though none of that is something that we would recognize either. Lengthy, sustaining sounds and massive walls of drones, though not mildly distorted like they would be an average Malignant Records release, this very well-crafted ambient/drone music; it reminded me in, for instance in 'Praterstern', of the music of :zoviet:france:, and as such they stand in a long tradition of isolationist music. Good but not the most original. (FdW) ––– Address: https://www.eilean-records.com/ BRB>VOICECOIL - RECONFIGURE MOMENTS (cassette by Muzamuza) BRB>VOICECOIL - CONTAINMENT (cassette by Muzamuza) ARTWHORE - PASTY POSTURE (cassette by Muzamuza) Back in Vital Weekly 1075 I welcomed BRB>voicecoil back after quite a long hiatus in releasing new music and recently Kevin Wilkinson went on tour along with Spoils & Relics and Ali Roberston of Usurper and for that occasion he had two new cassette releases. The first is 'Containment', nine pieces of "totally untouched field recordings. No processing or manipulation used in these recordings just microphone placement". It's hard to say what kind of field recordings we are dealing with here, but it seems to me the microphone is stuck in various windy places, with objects hanging the wind (next to the wash drying in the wind perhaps) and there is strong bass end to these recordings, which makes it all very enjoyable. A car passes in the distance; there is a piece with rattling of key in a rusty door. There is throughout these pieces quite some variation, and it is almost like a story, going from the outside, the wide open land, to a closed off space. It works quite well, also as composition of the whole release itself. In a way it sounds like vintage BRB>voicecoil music and that's great. As a companion/sister release there is also 'Reconfigure Moments', which contains 'heavy manipulation of source material and resetting of audio time frames'. This too can be regarded as vintage BRB>voicecoil music and in some ways I am again reminded of the music of Small Cruel Party, but this time around also Hands To sprang to mind. In 'Reform' the process applied seemed to be very computer minded, with glitches and all such things, but the rattling of sticks on the pavement that open 'Recast' is a more familiar territory. The objects rattle and the effects are placed nicely along the way. Delay, reverb, chorus and all such like thicken the sound and here it slowly transforms into some more quiet. BRB>voicecoil may call this heavily processed and perhaps it is, but somehow it seems to me that the original sound shines through this quite a bit. In a way this was all quite percussive in an odd sort of way. Nothing 'beat' like or strict tempos but rather like but it works very fine. Noise based and at the same it is not so much noise based; analogue and digital processing gets mixed here and the result is, as always, quite lovely. I hope BRB>voicecoil crosses the sea and we get to witness his live sound and see how he all does it. Artwhore was a duo of Steve Legget and Bob Burroughs and back in 1996-97 they did some recordings and only recently it was decided to do a proper release. "The dole office was next to the Get Carter Car Park. Grey days spent dreaming of the sun. 50p for a can of Vibourg, £5 for some Old Windsor Sherry. There is an Alien intelligence from Sirius orbiting the Earth and it beams thoughts into your head using rays of pink light. Abandoned cats, one warm room. Pass the tray and put on another episode", which perhaps describes the way the circumstances in which this music was created. There is no description as to what kind of instruments are used, but I should think some synthesizers and cheap sampling keyboards. The first three pieces take us into some more moody, dark, lo-fi ambient territory and perhaps one could think this is what they are after, but in 'Shamm' a short sampled glitches is the rhythmic content of it and it becomes a curious techno hybrid; one could think of a highly experimental form of Porter Ricks which is something that in 'Horseloverfat' is further expanded. A rhythm is stuck in limbo and keyboards wave on top. But then 'Electricity (Version)' is more of an industrial rhythm exercise, unlike the original, which opens the cassette and in which rhythm is absent. 'DC10' is then an ambient thing again. I can see why they would perhaps not released it back then; it is too much of a mixed bag of sounds, even when I quite enjoyed this crude variety of ideas, textures and rhythms. Interesting stuff indeed, worth checking out, even when hardly alike BRB>voicecoil. (FdW) ––– Address: http://muzamuza.bandcamp.com CHANNELERS - FACES OF LOVE (cassette by Inner Islands) Behind Channelers is Oakland based composer Sean Conrad, who plays on the two pieces (one per side) harmonium, bowed bass, dulcimer, piano and Juno 60. He writes that the two pieces on this cassette are the result of "a practice of recordings and improvising as a mindfulness practice, playing to listen to and be with the sound", which may sound a bit hippie-dippy, and throughout the lengthy pieces of slow cascading harmonium drones and plink plonk of dulcimer, one could easily draw the conclusion that this is some lame meditation music, but I'd like to believe this is a little bit more than just that. The drone used by Channelers is just a bit stronger and deeper than on your average new age record, I would think (even when I hear a lot of those, thank god) and also it seems there are treatments that link his work to that of microsound. Both pieces evolve quite slowly and have minimal changes throughout. I guess one could lie down and stare at the ceiling with this music, and that's not a wrong thing to do. I read a book while contemplating what to write about this music, what to eat tonight and then put the book aside and all other thoughts and simply drifted along with the music. Maybe it's all a bit tacky, a bit new agey, but like with the Schlienz release elsewhere I would give Channelers the benefit of the doubt. (FdW) ––– Address: http://innerislands.com • |