PASCAL COMELADE & MARC HURTADO – LARME SECRETE (CD by Klanggalerie) *
GIOVANNI DI DOMENICO & MANUEL MOTA – DYSPNEA (CD by Headlights) *
MANUEL MOTA – LPC (CD by Headlights) *
GOLDEN DISKO SHIP – ARACEAE (CD by Karaoke Kalk) *
ROBBE GLOAGUEN QUARTET – GARDEZ VOTRE SANG FROID (CD by Mazeto Square)
BASTIEN BONI & NICOLÓ TERRASI – LES PARTITIONS INVISIBLES (CD by Mazeto Square)
JORDAN NOBLES – CHIAROSCURO (CD by Redshift Records) *
IAN WILLIAMS – THE DREAM EXTORTIONISTS (CD by Slaughterback) *
PASCAL LE GALL – DREAMS (10″ by Warm)
FØRSTEPERSONENTAL – MERMAIDS CAVE/COCKATOO ISLAND (10″ by Lydhoer) *
GREATHUMOUR – OLD EUROPA CAFE/LUCID CONVICTION (7″ by Tribe Tapes)
DEAD EDITS – ST. UNS (lathe cut 7″, CDR, mini CDR by Ballast NVP) *
DELUDIUM SKIES – ANTHROPOCENE (CDR by Xtelyon Records) *
ROYAL HUNGARIAN NOISEMAKERS – LE ROI EST MORT (CDR by Unsigned Label) *
RIBA STUKA (CDR by Unsigned Label) *
DOC WÖR MIRRAN – COVFEFE (CDR by Miss Management) *
ASTRO – VERMILLION GATE (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) *
DONATELLA BARTOLOMEI & ALESSANDRO CONEDERA – ALCHIMIA NOVA (CDR by Attenuation Circuit) *
ENCODER – NOISE FROM THE DEEP (cassette by Nausea.) *
INFAMIS – HEIMAT UND VERWESUNG (LP by Moloko Plus)
PASCAL COMELADE & MARC HURTADO – LARME SECRETE (CD by Klanggalerie)
Hold on, wait, what? That’s, more or less, what I thought when this CD landed on my desk. Surely, these two musicians are from two different planets? There is Pascal Comelade, the piano player of the softer chords, not shy of playing a toy piano even and there is Marc Hurtado, one half of Etant Donnes, the legendary group mixing up field recordings at an extreme volume and disturbing performance. Over the years, Etant Donnes worked with Alan Vega, Lydia Lunch, Michael Gira and Genesis P-Orridge, all luminaries of the loud. How did these two end up together; other than being from France? Comelade plays piano, electric organ and EMS/AKS synthesizers, while Hurtado sings and adds sounds (on three of the eight pieces). With Lunch, Hurtado toured “celebrating the music of Suicide”, it says on the information along with this new CD, and it’s not difficult to see the influence of Suicide on the collaborative effort of Comelade and Hurtado. Especially in the first three songs, almost spanning half the album, this influence is clear. The driving rhythm of repeating grooves on an organ, minimally repeated over and over, and Hurtado’s obsessive/obsessed voice are the templates inspired by Vega and Rev, also known as Suicide on their first two albums and maybe comparing the two favours the original. However, the other five tracks are just a bit different. In ‘Or’, the piano pipes up, and Hurtado’s voice is full of drama (and reverb and delay), along with added screams, while ‘Cri’ has an Arabic influence and ‘Larme’ is akin to The Doors, including guest drums by Olivier Brisson (not as jazzy as Densmore though), which can also be said of Etoiles, but now with repeating riffs on the keyboard and the bass lines. The voices are multi-layered and sound beautiful and spooky. Strings bring an end to the album in ‘Spirale’. These five pieces offer a more diverse palette of sounds and moods than the three opening pieces, which sounded too much like Suicide for me. I am pleasantly surprised by this remarkable collaboration! (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.klanggalerie.com/
GIOVANNI DI DOMENICO & MANUEL MOTA – DYSPNEA (CD by Headlights)
MANUEL MOTA – LPC (CD by Headlights)
Here are two new releases by Manuel Mota, our man on the guitar and as before, he presents one disc with the music of his own making and one in collaboration with another musician. In this case that is Giovanni di Domenico. He plays the Fender Rhodes. I believe he is from Brussels, which is also where this CD was recorded, at the Theatre La Balsamine. This was for me a good moment to look at what the Fender Rhodes is, having only a vague notion. I would have called it ‘an electric piano’, but as I learned from Wiki, it is “The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano or simply Fender Rhodes or Rhodes) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, the hammers strike thin metal tines, which vibrate between an electromagnetic pickup. The signal is then sent through a cable to an external keyboard amplifier and speaker.” That is great to know, as the way it is played by Di Domenico it doesn’t sound very traditional; not jazzy, not Ray Manzarek. I would think there is some sort of additional amplification used on both the guitar and the piano, resulting in a most strange set of sounds. The water-coloured sound of the Rhodes shines through here, but there is some remote playing going on; a distant sound. Not sure if it is the reverb used or if there was some distance in recording the music. Whatever the case, the result is some fascinating music. It is distant, alien, cold perhaps, but also sounds quite appealing. The guitar notes are concise, close together and sometimes merely nothing more than a few sounds, while the Rhodes has a watery, shaky tonal quality to it. Music that sounds like mere dots and vague smears being placed on a white canvas, minimal but very captivating stuff.
On his solo release, Mota has less information to spare. Here he plays the guitar, not specified to be electric or acoustic. I would think electric, seeing the amplification and reverb used. Although I didn’t play these two CDs straight after each other, I still see a line from the duo to the solo recording. If the duo was already minimal, which word is there left to describe this one? Mota is the man to place a few notes here and there and they are tied together through the use of the suggested space with the amplification and the reverb. Each piece seems to be coming out of the previous, or maybe they are variations on themes. There are no track titles on the cover, so I am not sure about that. Within thirty-one minutes Mota plays twelve of these pieces, all quiet, all desolate, all beautiful; and all short and to the point. This is not easy music, I thought. One has to keep on listening, concentrating; slipping back into some easy listening comfort zone didn’t work very well for me. I realize this might be different for other people; it is just how it works for me. In all honesty, I felt a bit tired afterwards and needed some else to do, other than music that is, for some time to unwind. An excellent release! (FdW)
––– Address: https://headlightsrecordings.blogspot.com/
GOLDEN DISKO SHIP – ARACEAE (CD by Karaoke Kalk)
As I am looking through my old Vital Weekly archive, searching for the name Theresa Stroetges, I noticed there was also a concert announcement and I am pretty sure I was at that concert, but it was one of those lost weekends in which everything blurs (ask John Lennon about lost weekends), so, to be honest, I don’t remember a thing about it. Which is something, shamefully, I have to admit, I wrote that before when I reviewed her ‘Prehistoric Ghost Party’ (Vital Weekly 823). I have no idea why it took so long to come with a new release, yet here it is. ‘Araceae’ is her fourth release. I understand she is a bit of a traveller and this new album was partly conceived while she was in India. While she normally plays all her stuff herself, there are two guest musicians on this record, percussionist Dripta Samajder and saxophonist Sophia Trollmann; both, however, on one track only. Stroetges plays all the other instruments and I understand these include, guitars, viola, glockenspiel, toys, Casio, sampler, kaossilator, accordion, cymbals and Stroetges’ voice. There is no easy label available for the music of Golden Disko Ship; it is the sum of a lot of things. Pop music, progressive rock, world music, techno, krautrock and jazz; not all at the same time, not all in equal measures. Sometimes you a hear something in her voice that is pop-like, or a groovy rhythm that invites the listener to dance, such as the housy opening of ‘Wildly Floral, Slightly Damp’, but then the guitars make not much sense in a house tune; the vocals here sound like Tom Tom Club, which is a big plus in my book. The previous record seemed all a bit too dark and occasionally too dramatic, but none such seems to be the case here. The six tracks are longer than your average pop song, with four of them clocking in over seven minutes and there seems to be much more enjoyment and pleasure in these songs. It is all hardly experimental, bizarre or such things that we love so much at Vital Weekly, but yet this is also not a record that is all too slick and middle of the road. There even for us ambient lovers and dream pop minds much to be enjoyed here and on such a lovely, sunny day this is simply the best record to enjoy a cool drink on the balcony and play this over and over again. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.karaokekalk.de
ROBBE GLOAGUEN QUARTET – GARDEZ VOTRE SANG FROID (CD by Mazeto Square)
Earlier we reviewed a duo work by Fabien Robbe and Jerome Gloaguen, called ‘Anima/Animus’ (Mazeto square). This time they present their quartet. With Robbe on piano and Gloaguen on drums, they are joined by Ëric Leroux on sax and Tanguy Le Doré on bass. It is a double cd. Disc one features the quartet, interpreting compositions Francois Tusques wrote for his Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra around 1983-84. Compositions that have not been recorded by Tusques himself. The second cd contains a live recording by the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra at Theatre de Jazet in 1984. A historical recording that is first released now. So we are dealing here with a very special release dedicated to Francois Tusques. It was Le Doré – longtime bass player for Tusques – who came across these compositions, what made Robbe decide to give these works a new life. A bit of history first. Francois Tusques is a crucial composer and pianist of the French jazz scene, a free jazz pioneer who debuted in 1965 with the album ‘Free Jazz’(!). Till very recent Tusques recorded music for the now-defunct Improvising Beings label. During his long career, his ensemble the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra represents an important phase. It had Occitian trumpeter Michel Marre, Algerian-born drummer Guem, Guinean saxophonist Jo Maka and Togan trombonist Adolf Winkler as first members. This ensemble operated in the 70s and 80s. Over the years it had different participators from all over France and from diverse immigrant communities. Their music reflected their corresponding different musical traditions and styles. This live registration of 1984 is a good example of this. Open and grooving and repetitive textures à la Sun Ra create space for fantastic Spanish-styled singing by Andreu Carlos, solos on bombarde played by Jean-Louis Le Vallegant, etc. Music that breathes a pleasant atmosphere. Tusques moved away from free jazz and wanted to unite different musical traditions in a jazz context. The music interpreted by the Bretagne-based Robbe Gloaguen quartet is again something else. They rearranged material that was written by Tusques in the 80s. It is no free jazz. Nor obvious influences of other traditions can be detected here. This time the music stays close to the jazz tradition. Compositions are melodic and harmonic. They are presented here in an animated performance by the quartet. Both recordings feature Tanguy Le Doré, who impresses with his characteristic style and sound that caught my attention. In all this release is a very sympathetic tribute to Francois Tusques and his music. (DM)
––– Address: https://www.mazeto-square.com/
BASTIEN BONI & NICOLÓ TERRASI – LES PARTITIONS INVISIBLES (CD by Mazeto Square)
Here we have two new names. I know Raymond Boni of course, a French guitarist, improviser and composer who is active since the end of the 60s. Bastien – his son – likewise choose for a career as a musician. He plays in several ensembles and projects lead by his father, like the Raymond Boni Fortuna 21 Octet. Terrasi is a guitarist, composer and improviser from Italy. He also has an interest in exploring the interaction between visual art and music and has a love for playing traditional music. Both Marseille-based musicians compose works for theatre, film and audiovisual arts and both participate in Grand 8 Ensemble from Marseille, another ensemble led by Raymond Boni. A look at Bandcamp leads to more of their duo work and other collaborations. With ‘Les Partitions Invisibles’ they make their debut through the traditional medium of a CD. For their project, the book ‘Le Città invisibili’ by Italo Calvino inspires them. It led to a work that combines free improvisation, soundscape and audio play. It reminded me of the legendary Un Drame Musical Instantané , a group that worked with a similar combination of components. Their instrumental improvisations unfold most of the time at a slow pace, which gives the improvisations an ambient-like and spatial quality. It is these instrumental sections that spoke to me most. Terrasi plays the electric guitar sometimes with a bluesy feel, which is a pleasure. They are interspersed with pieces that have different field recordings in the forefront, often spoken word (French, Italian). While listening it is as if one enters an imaginary world. In ‘La linea piu breve fra due punti’, they depart from the sound of a driving car, followed with looped guitar patterns with a noisy interplay of Boni And Terrassi on top of it; a sort of a collage. In between Terrasi and Boni play short acoustic intermezzo that is constructed from traditional musical elements. The work can be considered as a sort of collage, built from more or less autonomous entities. Sometimes this leads up to evocative and engaging moments. At other moments results remain at the surface and sound a bit arbitrary. (DM)
––– Address: https://www.mazeto-square.com/
JORDAN NOBLES – CHIAROSCURO (CD by Redshift Records)
IAN WILLIAMS – THE DREAM EXTORTIONISTS (CD by Slaughterback)
Here we have two albums with ‘modern classical music’, with differences and with similarities. From Jordan Nobles, I heard a composition before, on a release by Instruments Of Happiness (see Vital Weekly 1185), and now I hear ‘Chiaroscuro’, his ninth release. The title comes from visual art and is “the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition”, which I guess is reflected in the composition. It is performed by an ensemble of instruments, including wood and wind instruments, violins, cello, harp, and guitars, but also voices. There is a slow, meandering feel to the music, in which all of the instruments occasionally move to the front and slowly move back again. The whole composition sounds like a massive cloud that slowly changes shape and colour as it moves through the sky. It is a very minimal piece of music, but mainly in terms of development, not in repetition. That is something that we find in ‘Pulses’, the only other piece on this CD and with fourteen minutes about half the length of the ‘Chiaroscuro’. Don’t let the title mislead you, as there aren’t many pulses driving this piece, even when it all seems a bit more rhythmically inclined than the other. At one point I thought it was leaping towards that motorik, Steve Reichean drive, but that was cut short. A strange piece, this one, going into various directions without knowing where it is going to exactly. That’s just a remark, not a statement. Altogether, both pieces are quite introspective, I think, and offer some fine moment of contemplation.
In the early ’80s, I had a strong interest in the cassettes from Third Mind Records, and I followed them in their early foray into vinyl. I don’t remember when we parted ways, but the name Beautiful Pea Green Boat I certainly remember from those days, but not the actual music (or at least, I don’t remember). I must have decided to stick with cassettes. Behind Beautiful Pea Green Boat was Ian Williams, who in recent years works with Claudia Barton as Gamine; he also composed for choreographer Jourmana Mourad. Former Third Mind mister Levermore pointed me towards a new album, ‘Les Blessures Invisibles’, which is the soundtrack to a new documentary film by French director Eric Michel, “which investigates the consequences for the Gabonese town of Mounana of almost half a century of uranium mining. For many years the town had been the biggest supplier of uranium to the French nuclear industry, but in 1999 its mine was deemed no longer viable and the mining companies and their personnel withdrew. This left the infrastructure to fall into disrepair and the townspeople to face an uncertain future, with the after-effects of years of close contact with radioactive material not yet known”, but upon closer inspection, it turns out this album is only available on Bandcamp. I had some exchange with Levermore about it and received ‘The Dream Extortionists’, a CD from 2019. There are some differences between both albums. The CD contains music composed on various pianos and inspired by JG Ballard and with a less optimistic worldview. There are also orchestral sounds, voices and even a guitar, but the piano is the main instrument. This is modern classical music too, but different than the one from Nobles. If the latter represents the ‘art’ side of modern classical, then Williams is the one who plays film music. There are introspective passages, slowly building up to dramatic climaxes and cheerful ditties sitting next to ambient humming. Some of it is a mighty cliché, while some are quite nice. I have no idea if a full orchestra was employed, or perhaps it comes out of software package (and I don’t particularly care). I’m not sure if I heard the dystopian Ballard in here though. That’s something to think about. The ‘Les Blesssures Invisibles’ is a wholly different thing. The music is much more electronic, synthesizer-based and comes even with a bit of (techno) based rhythm here and there. There is even a catchy tune in the form of ‘URA 235’, which has hit potential, with its slight tribalistic drumming reminding me of an upbeat and radio-friendly Muslimgauze. It is a pity that this is not on CD or LP, yet maybe that can be done in the future? (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.redshiftrecords.org
––– Address: https://ianwilliams.bandcamp.com/
PASCAL LE GALL – DREAMS (10″ by Warm)
For his third release, Pascal Le Gall returns to the format of his debut, the 10″ (see also Vital Weekly 1067). After that, he released ‘Returns’ on CD (Vital Weekly 1151). Le Gall is a turntable musician since 2007 and sometimes works with choreographers, such as Bernardo Montet. His new record, ‘Dreams’ has one piece per side and these are called ‘Day’ and ‘Night’, as you can, of course, dream during both. While he uses various variable-speed turntables (and perhaps something else; a laptop maybe? Electronics of some kind?), it is interesting to note is that not a lot of the end-result is about the rotating of discs. I have no idea how Le Gall does that, but that’s what it is. On both ‘Day’ and ‘Night’, Le Gall experiments with heavily layered drone sounds, in which the repetition disappeared and becomes a finely woven mass of sound. I have no idea what kind of vinyl Le Gall plays on his turntables and how slow they go (1 rpm seems a possibility), but somehow, somewhere I think he uses quite a bit of orchestral music. Especially ‘Day’ is the orchestral feel; not big and jubilant, but slow and mournful. Odd, perhaps, given the title of the piece. In ‘Night’ these drones are also used, from different sources, but this piece is more a collage of various sounds, with strangely stops and turns. Is it a dream of a nightmare? That’s hard to say based upon what I hear, I think. I liked both sides, the steady daydream and the nocturnal nightmare. All of is pretty dark and fits the sonic landscape we heard from Pascal Le Gall until now. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.warm-ed.fr
FØRSTEPERSONENTAL – MERMAIDS CAVE/COCKATOO ISLAND (10″ by Lydhoer)
Ah, here we have one of those reasons that I don’t have a spoken word podcast; I tried pronouncing this name to myself and I am sure I failed terribly. It might be Norwegian (suggestion by Google Translate) and it could mean ‘first-person’. This first-person is Christian Windfeld, born in 1983 in Denmark, and since the age of 19, he travels around the world as a percussion player. In Vital Weekly 1141, Dolf Mulder reviewed his first record, which was a 7″ and now it’s time for a 10″ record. Both sides contain one-piece, recorded in one place, without effects or overdubs. Mermaids Cave can be found in The Blue Mountains near Blackheath NSW Australia and on Cockatoo Island there is WWII circular air raid shelter and it’s near Sydney Harbour NSW Australia. On each side, Windfeld plays a few instruments; on ‘Mermaids Cave’ a water bottle, egg whisks and snare drum, and on the other side found objects, shakers and snare drum. The music is performed with an audience and the natural surroundings are also picked up with the microphone. In the cave, there is water dripping at a steady pace in the background and Windfeld plays on top of that his instruments, rattling them slowly and creating piercing overtones with his snare drum. This is quite a powerful piece of music, scraping and scratching, while nature does its part. Inside the air-raid shelter, the natural reverb plays an important role and Windfield moves around in this place. At first from some distance, but then he’s moving closer to the recording device, creating movement in the music, while minimally changing the banging of the found objects. I couldn’t help thinking of Z’EV when hearing this. Natural resonances play an important role here and Windfeld makes great use of that on this piece (well, also on the other side, even when there is not much motion there). This is a very good recorded, indeed, but maybe on the short side; an LP would have been preferred! (FdW)
––– Address: https://christianwindfeld.bandcamp.com/
GREATHUMOUR – OLD EUROPA CAFE/LUCID CONVICTION (7″ by Tribe Tapes)
This is the second release I hear from Greathumour (see also Vital Weekly 1220), but now in a more condensed form. On Bandcamp, they say about this 7″, “an album, to be divided, on seven-inch” and, also, about the music, ‘jazz-inspired, psychedelic noise nonsense”. One of the things I was wondering about is the title of the first side. Is that a dedication to Italy’s finest industrial home? Or perhaps there is another meaning? As on their (?) cassette they work with organ drones and noise, and on ‘Lucid Conviction’ this all working towards that power drone, the uber hiss if you want, or drone ambient wall (is DAW already in use as a musical genre?). It gets stuck between the wings of the aeroplane (or the motor of the Bontempi used) and is quite a beast. Great, fine. However, ‘Old Europa Cafe’ is something else. Here we have the same organ, but also drums and there is indeed an attempt at jazz (I thought I was hearing some vocals as well; maybe I was delusional) and there is a building of amplification going throughout the six minutes this piece lasts. Here to things get stuck in the machine, start repeating until someone untangles the web and it is put back on track again. Great track, this one. A lathe cut record, limited to 20 copies, so you have to hurry up. (FdW)
––– Address: https://tribetapes.bandcamp.com/
DEAD EDITS – ST. UNS (lathe cut 7″, CDR, mini CDR by Ballast NVP)
There is more to this than what I list in the header of this review; there is much more than that. In the final year of his life, when recovering from a train accident, Z’EV stayed with Blake Edwards in Chicago for quite some time. Edwards is the man behind Dead Edits, a duo he does with Eric Lunde, and various of their releases deal with the Z’EV legacy and more in particular Z’EV project with voices, which he called UNS. On February 24, 1980, UNS played live for the first time and Dead Edits have declared 24th of February as St. UNS day. This box provides you with everything you need for a proper celebration of St. Uns day; “ceremonial venerations and devotions (7” lathe, CDR, 3”CDR, book, votive candle, foldable shrine, fetish and veneration objects”. When I reviewed a double CD by UNS on C.I.P. (see Vital Weekly 721), ‘I quoted the Industrial Culture Handbook about UNS saying, a “band producing “low-tech” rhythms and rants (the vocalist’s name is Saul Zev)”. Through some sort of lo-fi process is applied to the voice and it all sounds warped and folded up. There is surely also some sort of loops employed here and the text as such is not easy to recognize (as in: not at all). It is indeed rhythm and rants going down here. Dead Edits have three sound carriers here, in which they work out how the UNS sounds work and they come remarkably close to the original. C.I.P., Blake Edwards’ previous label enterprise, released ‘An UNS Momento’ as the inaugural CD release for the label a long time ago (see Vital Weekly 174) and comparing what Dead Edits are doing on the 5″CDR here comes very close. Here we have short pieces, noisy, repetitive and, most of all, a very captivating listening. As said, I have no way of knowing how they do it, but they do it. On the 3″CDR they have one long, twenty-minute piece, which is more in line with longer UNS pieces, as documented on ‘What Does The Brain Have To Do With It’ (see Vital Weekly 721), leaving also the voice territory a bit, which some more field recording material (or so it seems), which all mixes up into a lengthy and noisy excursion, which is less voice-based than the shorter pieces. On the 7″ it is all a bit more traditional UNS with voices and a cut-up recording of organ playing drones on one side and voices and loops on the other side. Altogether this is a wealth of music and with some interesting variety throughout the various formats.
There is also a small booklet with further texts and images, all cut-up, distorted and mysteriously and deliberately vague. All of this in a neat black box, crafted with much love for the actual physical release. A most complete package, I would think. There are only 24 copies of this made, so should want one, there is no time to waste. (FdW)
––– Address: https://ballastnvp.blogspot.com/
DELUDIUM SKIES – ANTHROPOCENE (CDR by Xtelyon Records)
This is my second encounter with Deludium Skies (see also Vital Weekly 1137) and still, I am none the wiser about this group. For all I know, solely based on what I hear, I would think this is a duo; someone banging the drums hard and someone strumming the guitar. The first time I heard them, I thought the drums were from a machine, but here I believe it is a real drummer (but, what do I know?). This is very much the work of rock music; noise rock to be precise and in eleven songs, sixty-five minutes they make their statement, loud (very loud) and very clear. It is that wall of sound approach that you find in metal music, of which this might be regarded as an example. Slow metal at that, as the tempos of the songs is usually not very fast. The guitar alternates between lots of distortion, but also can go back to more ‘normal’ chord strumming. This is the sort of the thing that you won’t find on heavy rotation here, although the occasional Skullflower finds it’s way to the player, and it is music that I don’t know much about. That makes it hard for me to talk about this in terms of references and such; my book on noise rock is quite empty. As I was occupied by some other stuff one afternoon, I had this on rotation for a while and maybe I heard it about three times in a row, before even starting to think about the review, which means that I quite enjoyed the energy of such slow and heavy music. Maybe it is blues music (that’s what I thought before) and if so, it might be the sort of blues that re-vitalized me. (FdW)
––– Address: http://xtelyonrec.wordpress.com/
ROYAL HUNGARIAN NOISEMAKERS – LE ROI EST MORT (CDR by Unsigned Label)
RIBA STUKA (CDR by Unsigned Label)
The first group are no stranger to these pages. The Hungarian Noise Makers are mainly Vlad and Rovar17 along with a bunch of partners creating some noise-based electronic music that is not out there to shock through excessive volume, but with dense massive sample based on a bunch of computers. At least, that’s what I think and that is based upon what I hear. Sounds are stretched out and get a crude digital treatment and it all becomes dirty and ugly. In ‘Der Hund’ they reach towards true noise with a bunch of distortion on the sounds and the addition of a vocal howl or two; it is a live piece so maybe there is some explanation in there? Sometimes there is a bit of rhythm, in ‘Pnygyhouse’ and ‘Die Katze’, but these are embedded in that cold clinical distant noise approach they. This is a soundtrack for the unsettling, a nerve-racking nightmare. I am not sure if I think there is progress to report or if they carve out their sound any further. For now, I think it’s the latter and this is a solid strong noise release without lazy repetition.
The other new release is a bit more obscure. It starts with the cover; it says Riba Stuka, but on Bandcamp, it is called RibatStuka. And looking at the cover I could believe this is a compilation, with eleven individual titles but on the CDR it one long piece; maybe this is a mixtape of some kind? What ties these pieces together is the fact that almost all of the pieces use the voice of one Xabi N, but set to music by others, such as the Royal Hungarian Noisemakers, L*mbik, Rovar17, MaN, Xplnglke and others. It is all about the voice of Xabi N, darkly intoning his texts, in Hungarian, so it’s a tad bit difficult to tell what these are about. Here too we have a similar approach to noise as we saw with the Royal Hungarian Noisemakers, but with a bit more variety; there is also some guitar abuse to be noted, but with all the music tucked away in the background it’s less noise based. Since I have no clue what this is about and it is text-heavy, I can only see this as a work of sound poetry. For all I know I am wrong. I am sure it is all good, but I am afraid not my cup of tea. (FdW)
––– Address: https://havizaj.bandcamp.com/
DOC WÖR MIRRAN – COVFEFE (CDR by Miss Management)
Some of you may find it hard to believe, but even among the Vital Weekly readers there are supporters of Trump; there are some who mistake his shenanigans as ‘true punk’, just as millionaire Johnny Lydon does; cash from chaos is what right-wing media is about as well (Alex Jones selling ointments to rub in fake ‘news’). These fans might not what to send their zero dollars to purchase ‘Covfefe’ by Doc Wör Mirran. Covfefe was a word Trump tweeted and no one understood what it meant. The only two previous times this word was mentioned in Vital Weekly was on Doc Wör Mirran releases. Guys, too much! I know, ostriches and such, but ignore him as much as you can. You can’t change the world. I skipped the piece with Trump voice samples, too much, guys! I am never one that thinks music can change the world. Words can, not music. Michael Wurzer (arrangements, synthesizer), Stefan Schweiger (teramine, samples, accordion, toys) and Joseph B. Raimond (guitar, bass, ukulele, mixing) are responsible for the music here. No saxophone this time, which brings quite a different dimension to the music. The two previous releases by Doc that included covfefe share titles with pieces on this new release, but they might have been live recordings and this a studio one; the krauty element of the music is all present and correct, and the guitars nice howl away, while the rhythm machine plays another steady job. But there are also dreamy guitars against a wall of bird’s twitter; not sure if there is a connection between that and the favourite propaganda tool of Trump or the hope for a nicer, better, safer USA. All of the pieces flow right into each other. The last song, ‘Phuture’, is the longest but also a bit of mess as a collage. The future is chaotic? I bet it is. Best song title; ‘Wish You Were Her’. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.dwmirran.de
ASTRO – VERMILLION GATE (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
DONATELLA BARTOLOMEI & ALESSANDRO CONEDERA – ALCHIMIA NOVA (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
These two new releases by Attenuation Circuit couldn’t be further apart, music-wise and of both genres, I am something of an interested observer rather than an avid fan. Let’s start with the noise end of things. Since many years Astro is the solo project of Hiroshi Hasegawa, who is also a member of CCCC. He plays modular synthesizer, field recording and sampler. Also part of Astro on this release is one Rohco who plays electric violin and electronics. Not that one could easily recognize field recordings or violins in the three pieces on this release; two pieces of about fifteen minutes and one that is twenty-nine. That one, the title piece, sees Astro being at his loudest. It is a long onslaught of distorted sounds, but it’s not of the strict harsh noise variety. It almost sounds as if Astro first stuck a whole bunch sounds on tape, with hard cuts between them and then feeds it through his modular synth, with everything sets to overload and destroy. The two shorter pieces before that, by comparison, is a tad less destructive and upon re-listening, one can recognize the field recordings (which I guess were taped at a demolition site downtown). The violin is nowhere to be recognized and it could be about any instrument being fed through a whole lot of electronics, resulting in feedback and distortion. It all sounds very akin to Merzbow and should there not be enough of that, there is always Astro (luckily not on a similar release schedule frenzy).
Dolf Mulder compared Donatella Bartolomei with Diamanda Galas (Vital Weekly 1054). Now she returns with Alessandro Conedera, who is responsible for ‘music, atmosphere, and sounds’. I assume he creates these with electronic means, without being specific what these means are. I assume laptop. Bartolomei sings the words she wrote, and I can imagine there is also some extra effects used on her voice, looping her voice is one of them. Bartolomei has a flexible voice that most suited for opera, theatre and drama. I left her voice-only with Dolf, deeming a bit too much opera for my taste, but now, embedded within the electronic music of Conedera, it works much better for me. The two have a variety of approaches here, ranging more song structured pieces on one hand to something more improvised; often there is also a mixture between both ends. That is clear from the opening piece, in which the voice repeats phrases against a backdrop of a minimalist rhythm, but with space to improvise on the notes. At times the opera-like voice may sound gothic and full-on dramatic, certainly when the electronics are in a similar dark place, which is not always my cup. Once that is left behind, or when the focus changes a bit towards something else, such as in ‘Farara’, which sounded like a folk song going electro, I was pleasantly surprised, and also with the more ‘out there’ of the improvisations and perhaps less when it all too dramatic. (FdW)
––– Address: http://attenuationcircuit.de/
ENCODER – NOISE FROM THE DEEP (cassette by Nausea.)
Certainly, something that will see more and more on covers in the next months; “recorded during lockdown 2020”, or similar texts. For the four pieces on this cassette, each between five and six minutes, it says, “impro session with field recordings and other “machines”, recorded in my kitchen during lockdown, March 2020″. Of course, I’d be curious to know who is behind Encoder or and what these other machines are; but none such on the Bandcamp page or the cover. Maybe it all depends on how big the kitchen table is? (And, come to think of it, why is the kitchen of any relevance here? Would Encoder use a different place had there not been a lockdown?). I would think, and as always, I could be entirely wrong here, I would think that he uses many field recordings, which he sticks in the computer and the outcome is a very interesting set of electro-acoustic pieces of music. It is all-vibrant and moving about, presented as a collage of sound. Sometimes there are brutal cuts, going in and out of the mix. Some of the sounds are indeed from the kitchen sink, buzzers, telephones, utensils falling on the floor and the street outside (which may not always be very quiet; I realized there may not have been recorded during the lockdown). Maybe Encoder uses some sort of live sampling with these sounds, with those beer caps instantly processed. The titles are a bit silly, ‘Find From Torture Chambers’, ‘Dinosaurs On The Go’ and such like, which somehow doesn’t seem to the more serious approach that the music has. That is perhaps a pity, and the same goes for the shortness of the release; I would have liked it all to be a bit longer. (FdW)
––– Address: https://nauseadevivre.bandcamp.com/
‘Less than Vital – music [not] reviewed outside our box’
INFAMIS – HEIMAT UND VERWESUNG (LP by Moloko Plus)
Maybe it is because I reviewed Asmus Tietchens’ CD by Moloko Plus two weeks ago that prompted the sending of this LP. There is a lengthy press text in German on paper that I am not willing to translate and re-type. This is a rock band. Plain and simple. German lyrics. Normal rock music, nothing weird or strange. Surely something that will go down with an elderly audience of left-wing middle-class audiences who find pride in still going to see a proper rock band. I have no idea what these songs are about, but it’s dramatic and intellectual. I should brush up my German. Maybe with some Rammstein for a counter measurement of fun. Oh, CD included with the LP with the same material. (FdW)
––– Address: http://molokoplusrecords.de/