number 1129
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week 17 ---------------------
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JEMH CIRCS - (UNTITLED) KINGDOM (CD by Cellule) * JOHN TILBURY & KEITH ROWE & KJELL BJØRGEENGEN - SISSEL (CD by Sofa) * EVELIEN VAN DEN BROEK – FALSE MEMORIES (CD, private) SHE SPREAD SORROW - MIDORI (CD by Cold Spring) FRANS DE WAARD & TAKUJI NAKA & TIM OLIVE - FALSE MERCURY (CD by 845 Audio) * LUCRETIA DALT - ANTICLINES (CD by Rvng Int) * BEN BERTRAND - NGC 1999 (CD by Les Albums Claus) * DAIMON - DUST (CD by Silentes) * ORQUESTA DEL TIEMPO PERDIDO – STILLE (CD by Shhpuma) ALEJANDRO FRANOV - ALBRICIAS (CD by Panai) * ASUNA - ORGAN LEAVES (CD by Vector) * ASUNA - MILLE DROPS (CD by Recit) * CASIOTONE COMPILATION 7 (mini CD by Aotoa) LE TON MITE - I’M GOING TO THE STORE TO GET SOME VEGETABLES (mini CD by Aotoa) * MAP 165 - OF ADAM SLEEPING IN THE LAP OF GOD (CDR by Rural Colours) * COLD VOODOO - AB+ (cassette by Wide Ear Records) A LINEAR THOUGHT (7” by Wide Ear Records) TODD ANDERSON-KUNERT - A GOOD TIME TO GO (cassette by Nonlinear) * SIMON WHETHAM - OPEN AND CLOSED CIRCLES (cassette by Mappa) * CALINECZKA - WYDATEK NEUTRONÓW PODCZAS POBUDZONEJ WYBUCHOWO KOMPRESJI DEUTER- TRYT W UKŁADZIE CYLINDRYCZNYM Z WARSTWĄ O DUŻEJ INERCJI (cassette by Szara Reneta Tapes) JEMH CIRCS - (UNTITLED) KINGDOM (CD by Cellule) Somewhere along the lines over the years I seem to have lost touch with Black To Comm, Marc Richter’s musical project. I can’t remember I last saw a release from him. Likewise I didn’t pick up on the fact that he has a new guise called Jemh Circs. As Black To Comm he was wrangling analogue tapes and vinyl based sound and with the new moniker he does the same but the sources are “modern pop music (and various other oddities) on YouTube (et al.)”. The wrangling is now described as “sending chunks of it through a variety of arcane transformations and mutations”. I understand this to be a modern form of Plunderphonics. The label describes this as “a seemingly one-dimensional concept into a complex puzzle of ideas, sounds and narratives”, but honestly I fail to see the narrative. Maybe there is a sample or two of The Fall in ‘The Fall”, maybe a bit of SPK in ‘Auto-Da-Fe’ or a bit of Zebra in ‘Zebra’, but in the latter’s case which Zebra? The band that holds the entertainment rights since 1974 or any of the 31 other bands using the word Zebra, including one that is a similar Plunderphonic project as Jemh Circs, taking samples of the internet, but in a more conceptual approach, like all stuff having to do with the word ‘music’. Such an overall narrative is not here on this release, and for all we know it’s all about the pleasure of transforming bits of sounds from a digital source into a whole bunch of loops and play around with using an abundant wealth of sound effects. Jemh Circs loves to create short bits and bobs with it, somewhere between a minute and four something. Nothing is very long and each is what it is, a sketch like, but it also maintains a bit of speed in the whole thing. I am altogether not too sure about it. I would preferred a more coherent narrative, and after a while the approach is clear and sixty-four minutes is a bit a long if it keeps bouncing back and forth between loops and sound effects that is mostly heavy on the droning parts and comes with occasional beats. A selection of pieces, condensed to forty minutes would have made this a stronger (pop?) statement. Yet there is enough to select in here and create your own album in true DIY spirit. (FdW) ––– Address: http://cellule75.bandcamp.com JOHN TILBURY & KEITH ROWE & KJELL BJØRGEENGEN - SISSEL (CD by Sofa) When discussing this release by these gentlemen, one can’t avoid mentioning the name AMM, the group of which both Tilbury and Rowe was a member. A name of legend in the world of improvised music. But they also met on other musical occasions and they have some work before, ‘Duos For Doris’ in 2003, ‘E.E. Tension And Circumstance’ in 2010 (see Vital Weekly 814) and ‘Enough Still Not To Know’ (2015; Vital Weekly 1001). That last work introduced to the work of video artist Kjell Bjørgeengen. Back then he did the video installation, now he gets credit as an equal partner on ‘Sissel’, even when his work is only to be seen as part of the cover; no DVD included this time. So we have the musical part by Tilbury on the piano and Rowe on the table top guitar and objects and this work is dedicated to Bjørgeengen’s wife Sissel who died a few weeks before the recording took place. I guess that was an influence on the music found its shape as it is very quiet, perhaps as expected, but taking in account the sad occasion one is bound to read that into the music. Tilbury’s piano seems to be more than ever in a contemplative mood with some very sparse notes played in a very majestically slow pace with lots of space between them. Rowe plays on a few occasions a bit more sounds, the scanning of rusty objects so the speak and they become dense and drone like, at which moment Tilbury seems to be quiet, so as Rowe is very quiet at other times. Hard to put into percentages, also because one doesn’t know how each sound is generated (for all I know Tilbury plays the keys of piano but maybe also other parts of the instrument?), and it may seem at times there is no connection at all, whereas on other occasions there is an absolute fine interplay between the two of them. This is all very contemplative music in the best AMM tradition, but with that oddly strange edge to it from time to time. (FdW) ––– Address: http://sofamusic.no EVELIEN VAN DEN BROEK – FALSE MEMORIES (CD, private) Evelien van den Broek is a composer, singer and songwriter based in Amsterdam. She composes for film and dance productions. She was part of the group Daisy Bell with Richard van Kruysdijk and Dyane Donck. Nowadays she is leading her own experimental projects like KUrKKU. The ´False Memories´ project was initiated in collaboration with the prestigeous November Music festival, and premiered on November 12th, 2016. It was a multi-media project in collaboration with video artist Marcel Wierckx. For this cd-release Wierckx provided some video-stills for the booklet. Musicians involved are Koen Kaptijn (trombone) and Tony Roe (Moog, OB-6 synths, clavinet, Wurlitzer); unknown musicians for me. Kaptijn is member of the New Trombone Collective, and the Orquestra del Tiempo Perdido. Van den Broek composed, arranged and produced everything and is responsible for vocals, electronics and programming. For this project van den Broek took inspiration from an interesting and even scaring phenomenon: false memories. Scientific research by A.R.Hopwood proved that we can have memories of an experience of something that – in fact - never happened. For the lyrics she used fragments from the rapports of these false memories. Van den Broek composed eccentric pop-songs of an intelligent complexity. Structure, sound and arrangements are constructed in function of the story. With a clear voice she sings of a world that never existed, a dreamy world somewhere between fact and fake-fact. The atmospheres she creates remind me a bit of Kate Bush and Björk and even more strongly, the work of singer Maggie Nicols with Uwe Lask. Voice, electronics and trombone make a good combination, evoking with imagination and phantasy the curious world of false memories. (DM) ––– Address: https://evelienvandenbroek.bandcamp.com/ SHE SPREAD SORROW - MIDORI (CD by Cold Spring) This is the third album by She Spread Sorrow - solo project of Alice Kudalini, also known as Alice Deviated and 50% of power electronics outfit Deviated Sister TV. Last year I really enjoyed her release "Mine" on Cold Spring, so I was anxious to give this one a spin. Midori, which is a both a given name and the Japanese word for "green" (as far as i know), is an album tied together by a dark narrative filled with personal trials and insurmountable terror. Fortunately the digipack contains all lyrics for those who like to indulge, but also without this lyrical context the album is a deeply dense sonic trip worth your while. However, death industrial fans be warned; although it is classified as such, this album does not contain anything even remotely akin to the work of Puce Mary, Control or Brighter Death Now - also unlike Kudalini's previous releases, that were much more abrasive. So yeah, don't get your hopes up if you're looking for that kind of intensity. If anything, descriptions like dark claustrophobic ambient with whispered vocals makes - despite its lack of snappiness - a lot more sense for most of the tracks. Anyway, the artist is not to blame there of course. Just a minor caveat. The album has some nice layered synth textures next to the more obviously acoustic sounds. The multiplexed atmospheres had images of Svankmayer films popping into my head every now and then, while actually most of the album could be used as film music, if you dropped the voice. "Night One" songs starts off with this lovely synth stab that dances statically around repetitive exploding noises and echoing bells, which gives the whole thing an esoteric colour, reminiscent of 90s Coil. In retrospect this is, without a doubt, my favourite track. "The House" features the return of the ticking clock element that also provided a sparse hint of rhythm at the end of track one. This is also the first song of the album that has a clear beat - albeit it a swampy one, that sounds like it is coming from the living room of that downstairs neighbour who loves to play his 45rpm disco maxis at 33, with the bass dial on max. Track four, "Who are you, Midori", could be the score to art housy psycho drama - which yes, is exactly what the album is about. The only thing is that the vocals are whispered all of the time. Some may take some kind of SMRI pleasure from that, but personally I was waiting for Kudalini to speak up or at least for the vocals to become more intense in order to resolve some of the lingering mystery that permeates the whole album. Closer upper "End Of Midori" drops a minimal triphop beat and has paper chains of shrill noise hissing about your ears while you constantly expect the track to climax into something quite unexpected, but unfortunately that doesn't happen and slowly the track dies away. So yeah in a way I guess that was kind of unexpected. Perhaps I just wanted it to go out with a proper bang. Not a big issue though. All in all I liked this new She Spread Sorrow, but I do hope the next album will be louder again. It is very different from 2017's "Mine" (or "Rumpspringa"), so if you liked those two, prepare to be confronted with something different. If you have a problem with change, just imagine you will listen to this one before you go to sleep and you'll keep the older SSS records for unwanted guests or as a anti- piped-muzak-extinguisher for shopping sessions. (PJN) ––– Address: http://coldspring.co.uk/ FRANS DE WAARD & TAKUJI NAKA & TIM OLIVE - FALSE MERCURY (CD by 845 Audio) This album was recorded at Extrapool in 2016, mixed by Takuji Naka, mastered by Jos Smolders and then released via Tim Olive's 845 Audio, which is based in Kobe Japan, so quite a decent amount of ping-ponging back and forth between Japan and The Netherlands before this collaborative effort was realised. According to his website Naka works with prepared turntables, amongst other things, and my guess is that this also the case on this album. Regarding the contributions of both De Waard and Olive; after listening to it I'm not entirely certain who had what part to play in the creation of False Mercury. Still that may just be the beauty of it; how the work of these three just naturally blends together as one, because it really does that. The album kicks off with a wobbly but rhythmic lofi piano loop followed by a dense drone that consists of some kind of modulated static. Still, nothing too punishing and like a lot of the bits that follow, these are mere snapshots of different atmospheres. At several points undulating streams of noise and electro-acoustic plucking and electric humming create a field of aleatoric randomness, that sounds well balanced, while at the same time remaining unpredictable. The overall sound is very saturated and raw which gives the album a pleasant vintage veneer. Slowly the coercive sound movements steer us through a mechanical landscape of steam-punk machinery, ranging from tiny pocket watches to massive, city-powering generators, each with their own grating voice and repetitive rattling defects. Sometimes we stumble upon the lingering ghost of musicality that stands midway between accidental radio test frequencies and a the arbitrary spasms of a wonky 78 rpm record player, but it rapidly trails of again before the haunting becomes real. Throughout the album there is a strange sensation of spatiality. Not due to the use of any effects - it rather seems like the whole thing was recorded without the use of an sound mangling tools, save a sparse filter here and there - but because of the extreme and extensive focus on some of the sounds, that in a less minimalistic composition would have gone completely unnoticed. All of it is very direct and honest - owing to the obvious minimalism it seems that despite the aforementioned mixing, most of what we hear is actually that what was recorded during the session at Extrapool. Although some of the sounds are somewhat intense, especially on headphones, nowhere does it become too abrasive or harsh, which really is a good thing with these kinds of records. To me at least, since i severely dislike having to reach for the volume dial every other second. The album ends with a piece (if you don't count the one single track that this album basically consists of as one piece) that seems to allow a tiny bit of high end cluster sounds to enter into the mix, which provides an interesting spectral change next to the reintroduction of aleatoric elements similar to the ones that featured at the beginning of the album. The whole thing last just over 30 minutes, which is a good length for this kind of stuff. A very uniform and aesthetically solid piece of work. (PJN) ––– Address: https://845audio.org/ LUCRETIA DALT - ANTICLINES (CD by Rvng Int) Here we have a “former geotechnical engineer from Colombia currently residing in Berlin”, where Lucretia Dalt sometimes works with Juoia Holter and Gudrun Gut. ‘Anticlines’ is her sixth solo album yet the first time I hear her music. On this album she uses the Clavia Nord Modular, “forming a rhythmic feedback flow with it”, a Moogerfooger MuRF (I am sure that means something to someone who reads this; I had to Google it) and her voice. Especially the latter is quite important; textbook enclosed. The songs are about El Boraro, the Colombian myth monster and Martian traces on Antartica. Some songs are instrumental. The label says that “her slippery spoken word and performative nature recalling the work of Laurie Anderson, Robert Ashley, Asmus Tietchens and Lena Platonos”; the latter I don’t know, but Asmus seems rather out of place to me in this context. I can, however, clearly see the connection with Anderson here. Dalt has a similar command of the voice, and doesn’t sing but speaks, recites, tells a story, set to music. And that music is minimal, electronic usually just a few lines on a synth, some rhythmic construction and quite stripped down. Perhaps not as stripped as Anderson’s ‘Oh Superman’, but like said it is easy to see the similarities in approach here, and yet by keeping it all electronic makes that Dalt has something that she can call her own. Some of these pieces are rather short and perhaps a bit too brief, but it maintains the speed of the album, which is actually quite nice. Altogether I thought was a very fine album with some delicate pop inspired electronic poetry pieces. (FdW) ––– Address: http://jgetrving.com BEN BERTRAND - NGC 1999 (CD by Les Albums Claus) Les Ateliers Claus in Brussels is a fine space to see exciting concerts; sometimes even of bands and people discussed in these pages. They also have a label, which is new information for me, but this album by Ben Bertrand is already their eleventh release. Bertrand is from Belgium and plays the bass clarinet along with effects and loop pedals and is influenced by early minimal music of Steve Reich and Terry Riley. However don’t take this inspired by thing too literal in this case, as Bertrand’s music is not as loopy or bouncy as the early works of the American pioneers. In the five pieces on this album Bertrand is more interested in playing a mellow tune, more ambient and the comparisons made by the label to Jon Hassell and Gavin Bryars make in that respect quite some sense. The bass clarinet is not always easy to recognize here; most clearly it sings in ‘V380 Orionis’, with some nice melody played over a repeating phrase. In ‘Sanctus Hubble’ the bass clarinet is introspective and the loops is kept simple. In the three other pieces the clarinet sound is much obscured by these effects and it becomes a bit blurred but in a very pleasant way. This is some truly fine minimal ambient music. I understand that the album is also available on LP, which makes that it is not very long, but even at thirty-two minutes still is rather short. I for one would not have minded this to be a bit longer, both as an album, I guess, as well as individual pieces to be longer in duration. Hopefully there will be a follow-up album soon then! (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.lesateliersclaus.com/les-albums-claus DAIMON - DUST (CD by Silentes) From the trio that makes up Daimon I heard of one player before, and that is Simon Balestrazzi, here on “(d)Ronin/vibes/treatments”. The other two are Nicola Quiriconi on voice, percussion, microphones and Paolo Monti on electric guitar and electronics. Seeing this being released by Silentes, you could easily think that this is an unusual release for them; no synthesizers used, which might seem an odd thing for this label. The four pieces here are quite atmospheric and that is of course in line with what this label does. The voice is not something that is used a lot, unless of course the electronics stretch this out to a mighty drone, which mixes gently with the drones from Balestrazzi (however that instrument works I have no idea) and the guitar of Monti. The gentle howl is part of all of these pieces in a various shades of grey, along with field recordings and percussion. Vibes might very be vibraphone, I think, judging by ’So High So Close’. Through there is a post-rock vibe to be noted in these pieces; perhaps all of this was made by ways of improvisation around a set of drones producing instruments with some more loosely arranged ornaments around them. In ‘Awash’ there is some spoken word, and somehow I think it’s not by Quiriconi but taped somewhere else and it reminded me of Silent Records in the mid 90s, say John C. Lilly. This is a most pleasant dark trip, combing ambient textures, drones and an improvised rock approach. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.silentes.it/ ORQUESTA DEL TIEMPO PERDIDO – STILLE (CD by Shhpuma) We are talking here of a project by Jeroen Kimman. He studied jazz guitar at the Arnhem Conservatory, and works almost in any thinkable musical direction. Jazz and improvisation, composed music, country, pop, you name it. He played with Rosa Ensemble, Brown vs Brown, het Doelen Ensemble, het Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, het Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Pump Organ, David Kweksilber Big Band, to name a few. He likes it to work with big ensembles, I conclude. Which is illustrated by this new release by his Orquestra del Tiempo Perdido, the name of which is a reference to Marcel Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’. The ensemble consists of Tristan Renfrow (drums, drum rolls), Leo Svirsky (accordeon), Michael Moore (clarinet, alto sax), Anna voor de Wind (clarinet, bass clarinet), Koen Kaptijn (trombone), Mark Morse (lapsteel guitar, screw), Seamus Cater (concertina and bass harmonica1), Sjeng Sschupp (double bass), Michiel van Dijk (tenor sax, flute) and Jeroen Kimman (all other instruments). One senses all kinds of influences pass by in this amusing universe created by Kimman and his team. Easy listening, much Americana, and more is touched upon. But they play in original and enjoyable way with these idioms. Resulting in pleasantly weird music. It is one continuous demonstration of playful madness yet accessible music also, albeit rhythmically complex and with many unusual twists. And it is not just weirdness that they produce. All influences are melted into something of their own. A bizarre and overwhelming musical world. Impressive. (DM) ––– Address: http://shhpuma.com/ ALEJANDRO FRANOV - ALBRICIAS (CD by Panai) This is a CD all right, but with a total length of twenty-five minutes it is a very short one. The title means ‘good news’ in Spanish, and the music is all about joy and happiness, receiving and perceiving. Franov is a big time artist in Japan where, so it seems to me at least, since whenever I get to hear his music it is on a CD released in Japan. Unlike previous work by him, this is all based on the piano and not a combination of piano, guitar, percussion, bass and such like, but effectively nothing changed in his approach. The music is indeed rather cheerful and I know I wrote last week that it seems that all piano based music these days and in these pages is based upon the heritage of mssrs Satie and Debussy, so this is the one to proof me wrong. As I have observed on numerous occasions I know very little about the world of classical music, which I believe this should be placed in, even when it is all sunny and cheerful. I was playing a whole bunch Frederic Chopin CDs the other week and quite enjoying that, and this particular Franov work arrived on a rather sunny day, and as I was doing nothing much, other than sipping coffee and reading a book, waiting for mister mailman (one of many) to arrive, this was a very pleasant release of piano music to further enlighten the bright day. Maybe joy and happiness are a bit strong words for my current state of mind, but sure, why not, this carefree music is certainly part of my well being. Just today of course! (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.naturebliss.net ASUNA - ORGAN LEAVES (CD by Vector) ASUNA - MILLE DROPS (CD by Recit) CASIOTONE COMPILATION 7 (mini CD by Aotoa) LE TON MITE - I’M GOING TO THE STORE TO GET SOME VEGETABLES (mini CD by Aotoa) Last Sunday afternoon I saw Asuna in concert for the second time in my life. The first time around he played 100 keyboards in a massive drone set-up, this time it was probably the same amount, but all children’s toys, and while not as drone or minimal certainly a fine display of the man’s many interests, plus it’s great to see him leap about to keep all those toys going. Naoyuki Asuna gave me these four releases, and ‘Organ Leaves’ is a re-issue of his first real CD released by Lucky Kitchen in 2003, yet never reviewed in these pages. ‘Mille Drops’ is his latest work. Asuna’s work found it’s way on labels as Home Normal, Spekk, Paddy White Mountain and Students Of Decay, so you might correctly believe that somehow, somewhere Asuna is part of the world of glitch, 100 keyboards or toys not withstanding. On a sound carrier his music is much more fragile, as proven by the delicate organ like tones on ‘Organ Leaves’. Shimmering, low in volume, drone like, mysterious and gentle; these are keywords for the early work of Asuna, but one could also see this as computer based music, yet it always remains warm. And come to think of it, closing one’s eyes during his concert one could easily think an element of glitch is still present in his sound, but then a bit louder than this one. I would think Asuna uses organ sounds, small percussion (glockenspiel), loops and maybe a bit of field recordings. It’s small and intimate music, the perfect wake-up music on a sunny spring Sunday. That was in 2003, ‘Mille Drops’ is from 2017. What is the development? One of the things that one immediately notices that the sound is fuller, even when less seems to be happening. This time there are only three pieces on this CD, spanning just thirty-four minutes and all three have a minimalist approach. The organs still produce drones, but reach out for overtones and hum about, while the percussion is looped around with some richer sound. This is still a xylophone, I think, but it sounds like a thousand raindrops, which is reflected in the title of the release. I would think, but perhaps I am all wrong, that there is more computer processing on this record than so many years ago. Asuna has two long pieces and one shorter and while these pieces are minimal he creates within these pieces some radical changes so it moves into entirely different territories. Sometimes by slowly fading new sound material into the equation, but sometimes also by letting something die out and then slowly fade up something entirely new and let that slowly expand. It is all very much like an Asuna work but one can easily see the progression. After you woke up, had a coffee, ‘Mille Drops’ easily can go along the second coffee. Asuna also runs a label, Ao To Ao, and the two recent releases are pro-pressed mini CDs; you don’t see that many anymore. The first one is a twenty-piece compilation and all the music is played on machines produced by Casio. There are no titles, except that each song is named after the models used, so for instance Otk has ‘Cz-1000, Ctk-701, Dh-100, Mt-68’ and Stijn Huwels ‘Vl-1’. On the labels’ website there are a bunch of pictures of these. Some musicians add a bit of singing and maybe some other instruments and also I assume to some extent there has been additional (computer) production, but throughout the characteristic Casio sound can easily be recognized in these pieces, and with everybody doing roughly an one-minute song there is some excellent speed here among these pieces. It ranges from electronic pop to more drone like excursions with A Les yachts also using the surprise appearance of a Casio clock. Excellent compilation! With: Bitchin Bajas, Sam Prekop, Otk, Lau Nau, Minamo, Fukurahagibatake + Noblue, Dudal, Ten Tote, Velveljin, Stijn Huwels, Nesbitt's Inequality, Yohei Yamakado, A Les Yachts, Ichito Mori, Red Brut, Mermomoc, Yingfan, Steteko + Tatami, Federico Durand and Shibata & Asuna. I had plans to see Le Ton Mité when they were in town earlier this month but another meeting took too much time and I missed out. So I am not sure what it is all about, but here is a mini CD with one song, ‘I’m Going To The Store To get Some Vegetables’, played twenty-one, each in a different style; space, electro, grunge, art school, reggae, s.c.a., hip hop, ambient, folk, rave, quartet, low fi, funk, charles ives, computer, country, choir, far out, le ton mite, metal and live in berlin, all as listed on the cover. Le Ton Mité takes the idea of say funk, ambient, folk and tries to play it on his instruments as rudimentary as possible. It never becomes very much country, hip hop or metal, but throughout there is a very naive approach to all these styles. Some of these are really funny, like ‘country’, but I didn’t recognize much ‘reggae’ or ‘hip hop’, but in the latter’s defence: it is only fifteen seconds. It is all nineteen minutes and throughout it is quite funny I guess, but perhaps also a bit too much of a novelty thing. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.faderbyheadz.com/ ––– Address: https://www.recit-rec.com/ ––– Address: https://sites.google.com/site/aotoao3inch/ MAP 165 - OF ADAM SLEEPING IN THE LAP OF GOD (CDR by Rural Colours) For me Map 165 is a new name. It is a collaboration between Martin A Smith and Tim Hooper, also new names for me, and they have had their debut released in 2014 by Voxxov. This new work is inspired by the “North portico of Chartres cathedral, melting stone into music”, as it says on the cover. To that end they picked up synthesizers and guitars and along with field recordings and no doubt sound effects they created four pieces, all around ten to twelve minutes. In each of these pieces time is brought to a standstill, or at least a serious slow motion with very majestically moves. It is like they are drawing circles, long ones by hand, so there are small irregularities to be noted. It is not a long loop on a mindless repeat action. Throughout each piece, movements are added and subtracted, going round and round, and the mood of the music is very solemn and quiet. It invites, well, no, screams for contemplation, but having said that Map 165 isn’t the most traditional ambient group, nor is the music new agey. There is a pleasant form of disturbance to be noted in this music, a rough edge, a mild dissonance if you will, that makes that I for one really like this music, despite falling asleep on the first time playing. That rough edge can be a ringing sound in the higher frequency range, a buried oscillating synth underneath or the overtone of guitar feedback, but with the spacious humming voices one doesn’t note it that much, or rather it makes a very fine balance between the dissonance and the gentle approaches. This is some very refined music for the moods. (FdW) ––– Address: https://ruralcolours.bandcamp.com COLD VOODOO - AB+ (cassette by Wide Ear Records) A LINEAR THOUGHT (7” by Wide Ear Records) Cold Voodoo is a Swiss duo of Tobias Meier (alto saxophone) and Silvan Jeger (bass). Both are young improvisers whose names appear regularly in Vital Weekly. Jeger may be known from his participation in Day & Taxi, the group led by veteran saxophonist Christoph Gallio. Tobias Meier participates in Things to Sound, a trio with his brother David Meier on drums and Yves Theiler on piano and synth. Both musicians work together since many years in different projects. And these recordings illustrate their fine interplay and communication. Very engaging improvisations that are lively, spirited and sensitive. Improvised music as it should be. I especially enjoyed the nice tone of Meier on his saxophone. All condensed in two improvisations of about 15 minutes. Recorded in Basel somewhere in 2017. A Linear Thought is a curious collaboration of Tobias Meier (composition) with Dalia Donadio (voice) and Berni Doessegger (words). Released as a 7”-single with two tracks, recorded 2016 in Basel and Berlin. It shows Meier from a totally different side. As a composer of two short vocal works, which has nothing to do with improvisation. Dalia Donadio performs them. We know her from her collaboration with Linda Vogel as Schwalbe & Elephant, who released the excellent ‘Ich Als Du’- album also for Wide Ear. In these two multi-tracked pieces we hear Donadio producing long sustained sounds. Singing if you want in a non-verbal way. With a nice poetic and thought provoking text by Berni Doesegger, in German only. (DM) ––– Address: http://www.wideearrecords.ch/ TODD ANDERSON-KUNERT - A GOOD TIME TO GO (cassette by Nonlinear) One of the more original packages for sound carriers to land on our desk was an artificial flower that came with an USB drive, or vice versa, delivered from Australia with music from Todd Anderson- Kunert (Vital Weekly 1070). His releases so far are conceptually strong and musically interesting. The previous one used vibrators and people masturbating. This new cassette is about the right moment to leave. You are at a party, talking with someone and the other leaves and doesn’t return to the conversation. I am sure that this is something that happened to anyone at one point. It is something Anderson-Kunert wanted to reflect in the five pieces on his cassette, and while I am not how it works out exactly, I can say that regardless of this the music is very enjoyable. As before Anderson-Kunert’s music is drone based, a bit louder and a bit grittier than many of his peers, but it is never very noisy. In the past I compared it to the likes of Joe Colley and Francesco Meirino, but here Anderson-Kunert continues to progress and leaves out overtly harsh tones and rough cuts; not that he used many of those before. The element of sound collage is something he does keep around, but sounds move around in a gentler way. It is not too easy what he uses here, unless one finds the vague notion of ‘electronics, synthesizers and samples’ enough. I would think those would do tricks like this. The music is quite personal, especially a piece like ‘A Moment To Have’, which seems to be using voice as well, mumbling, sighing and slightly altered, but which comes also across as a bit sad. In his sound treatments that melancholic aspect is also used quite a bit I think with a soaring, ringing organ tone sound. This is another beautiful release from this fine composer. (FdW) ––– Address: http://www.thisisnonlinear.com SIMON WHETHAM - OPEN AND CLOSED CIRCLES (cassette by Mappa) When Mappa invited Simon Whetham to do a cassette release he was not over the moon with joy. Whetham’s delicate field recordings based music is better suited on LP or CD, he thinks, but upon further thought the idea to do a work that is made for cassette became something he was excited about. For these six pieces on this cassette he collected a whole bunch of sounds he associates with cassettes; “mechanism, magnetism, friction, rotation, failure, repetition, fragility, ephemerality” as he calls it, and to that end there is a whole bunch sounds used in these pieces. There is a fine amount of crackling sounds, electric charges, magnetic sounds from electrical devices, all from around the house but also there are, so I believe, sounds from outside, machines, fences in motion through vibrating objects adding a sense of space to these recordings. While there are six pieces on this cassettes I must admit that the medium of the cassette gives the listener a hard time identifying each individual piece and I for one wasn’t paying that much attention where a track starts and stops, and simply enjoyed the whole thing as two side long collages of sound. In each piece, so it seems to me, Whetham uses this collage approach, by placing small blocks next to each other and via a rough cut going back and forth between them, not unlike Francisco Meirino or Joe Colley’s treatment of electrical sources. This is a great tape release, with a rather normal cover, very unlike Mappa’s previous releases. (FdW) ––– Address: http://mappa.bandcamp.com CALINECZKA - WYDATEK NEUTRONÓW PODCZAS POBUDZONEJ WYBUCHOWO KOMPRESJI DEUTER- TRYT W UKŁADZIE CYLINDRYCZNYM Z WARSTWĄ O DUŻEJ INERCJI (cassette by Szara Reneta Tapes) That title us surely one tongue twister, even in English, I guess, as it is supposed to mean “neutron yield for explosion-induced DT compression in cylindrical system with heavy inertial layer”. I have no idea what any of that means. Calineczka is a new name by behind is someone whose work was reviewed in Vital Weekly 391 and 420, back under the flag of Aleph. After some fifteen years of silence here’s another tape, with “three miniatures for a modular synthesizer”; miniatures that take up about a little less than one hour. Of the two older releases I reviewed one, but I couldn’t honestly remember what it sounded like. Modular synthesizer music is out there quite a bit and while not everybody is out to release his or her music, preferring to let it exist in the moment, Calineczka’s takes quite a radical approach. On the first side everything is faded up slowly but once in place it is quite a heavy slab of a single dark tone, which may set the foundation of house in serious jeopardy. I turned down the volume, as I was afraid for neighbourly complaints. The two pieces on the other side are alike, but both have one or two extra sounds it seems, yet also gravitate around the low end humming. As said this is quite the radical approach and for one I am not sure if a modular set-up is at all required here. Heavily amplified electrical hum picked up from the wall socket may to the same trick. Play with caution and enjoy its single-minded approach. (FdW) ––– Address: https://szarareneta.bandcamp.com/ |